Avery Woods is preparing to make her reality TV debut on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County — but thanks to her friendships with the OG Mormon Wives, she’s not a total fish out of water.
“I’m friends with a lot of the girls from the original show, like, Mayci [Neeley] was so kind,” Avery, 31, exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month while promoting her partnership with Olive & June.
Avery, who is a nurse-turned-influencer, noted that Mayci’s sister McCall Dapron is on the OC spinoff, so she “talked a lot” with Mayci, 31, before they started to film.
“Layla [Taylor] and I talked a lot, and they all really said the same thing,” Avery told Us, noting that the Hulu stars’ advice was, “You need to just be true to who you are.”
Avery, a mother of two, added that both Mayci and Layla, 25, “know how hard it can be” to film a reality show after starring on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives — based in Utah — since 2024.
“Especially when you, like, look around [and] there’s eight cameras pointing at you, and you’re mic’d up and it’s not a natural thing,” Avery mused.
The newly-minted TV personality revealed that she got “used to it very quickly” by leaning into what makes her unique.
“I’ve just come to realize both online and on the show, it’s so much harder to fake who you are,” Avery explained. “It’s so much easier just to be honest and truthful and speak your peace, and I think it’s a great opportunity for people to see, you know, all of us interact just as friends and humans and parents and spouses.”
She noted that with the new cast — that live in Orange County and Los Angeles — she hopes the show “humanizes” the women, most of which have been in the spotlight with social media as young moms for some time.
“The girls have all just said, ‘Be true to who you are, be honest, be yourself, like try to just let the walls down, and it’ll all fall into place and be fine,’” Avery added of the Mormon Wives’ tips for filming. “And so I’ve kind of trusted in that.”
While Avery told Us that her husband, David Christopher Woods, is “always my biggest cheerleader” and her “safe space,” she said Layla has been her biggest support from the original show.
“I am friends with a lot of the girls from the original cast,” Avery shared. “I think Layla is someone that I know I can go to and send a voice memo to and vent to, and she’ll get back to me and give really good sound advice.”
When it comes to her own cast, Avery pointed to Aspyn Ovard, Salomé “Sal” Andrea and Bobbi Althoff as the women she’s “very close” with.
“It’s so nice to have people that you already were very close to before filming on reality TV, because it’s not a relationship that we have to fake,” she said. “We all do the same job for a living, we all have kids, and we all have very insane, crazy lives, and it’s so nice to be on this journey together.”
As fans wait for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County to debut sometime in 2026, they can get their hands on Avery’s new Olive & June curated collection of 12 press-on nail styles “designed to seamlessly fit into her everyday life as both a mom and a businesswoman.”
“This was something that I loved so much,” Avery told Us of using press-on nails herself. “Coming from a nursing background, I couldn’t afford $150 manicures, and a lot of my audience work so hard — they’re nurses, first responders, teachers, stay-at-home moms, they also cannot afford $150 manicures.”
She added that teaming up with Olive & June on a nail collection that will last two to three weeks for $10 was a “game changer” and the “perfect fit.”
