The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Those ‘TikTok Swingers’ Are Ready to Re-Introduce Themselves

Taylor Frankie Paul, one of the stars of Hulu’s new reality series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, wants to clear a few things up. Yes, she and some of her gang of internet famous Mormon wives and mothers (also known as #MomTok) were swingers. But that’s not all she, or they, want to be known for.

If you’re lost, a brief refresher. During the pandemic, a group of beautiful, young, Mormon, Utah-based moms who posted videos together dancing grew huge social followings as rumors ran wild that they all were all sleeping with each other. Then, in May 2022, Paul seemed to confirm this when she made a video announcing that she and her husband were splitting up because she violated the rules of the “soft swinging” arrangement the couple had with several others in their #MomTok friend group. Many of the women denied it, some blasted Paul, and the whole thing was rather juicy.

Now, Paul and seven of her #MomTok friends are ready for a new chapter. They’ve filmed The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, they say, to tell a new story besides the one people have read in salacious headlines or on social media.

“This opportunity came at a time where I did want to tell my story and more of my background of who I am, rather than what the headlines are,” Paul tells Glamour. “I wasn’t just a swinger mom. I wanted to show more of who I was…it was an opportunity, and I took it.”

While not all the women on the show were implicated in the original scandal, the group all identifies, as castmate Jen Affleck (not that one) put it, as “outcasts” in their insular, conservative community. Another castmate, Mikayla Matthews, tells me that her husband has already been fired for her participation. As for Paul, the show follows her as she starts a new relationship, gets arrested for domestic violence, pleads guilty to assault, and has another child.

“I’ve had a lot of lessons learned,” Paul says of her past. “I had to go the hard way and that was all by my choices that I made in life.”

Ahead of the premiere, Glamour caught up with Paul, Matthews, Affleck, and castmates Demi Engemann, Jessi Ngatikaura, Mayci Neeley, Whitney Leavitt, and Layla Taylor about the stereotypes people still have about them and why they decided to take their content from TikTok to reality TV.