No Right Reasons

Did Taylor Frankie Paul just cause the downfall of America’s biggest reality dating franchise? I truly hope so. 

As of this week, she’s at the center of an active domestic assault investigation—just days before her season of The Bachelorette is set to premiere.

If the naïve premise of hopeful singles finding lasting love over six weeks in a mansion—on camera—wasn’t enough to make The Bachelorette feel antiquated and unnecessary, perhaps the latest headlines surrounding this season’s breakout star will. And now, it’s forced a much bigger question about whether this show—and how it casts—still works at all.

If you’re a woman between the ages of 25 and 70, you’ve probably seen at least one episode of The Bachelor, or its equal opportunity spin off, the Bachelorette.  And if you haven’t actually watched a whole season, surely you’ve heard of it? The format is a tale as old as time: one eligible man or woman meets twenty-plus singles, all vying for a red rose, a proposal, and hopefully, a marriage—with heartbreak, helicopter dates, and rose ceremonies along the way. A rose ceremony sounds culty, but it’s just the show’s signature elimination ritual. Those who receive a rose continue to court/be courted in the mansion, and those who don’t face a long, lonely, limo ride. There are innumerable ways to blow it on the Bachelor or the Bachelorette, but being accused of being there for the “wrong reasons” is by far the deadliest. “I’m just here to find my person…” We don’t believe you, JAKE.

Over its 24-year run, the show has evolved but mostly stuck to its original format, spawning a wave of reality dating shows—many of which have traded marriage for vibes (I’m looking at you, Love Island). And to give credit where it’s due, the show’s early years did produce a few happy couples who have gone on to enjoy long marriages and start families. When considering this, we must remember that the early aughts were a purer time. The Bachelor predates Facebook by two years. Think about that. To stay up to speed on the show you had to watch live week after week — God forbid you had to DVR it and overhear a spoiler at the watercooler on Tuesday morning. Gen Z, go ask Siri what DVR means. And then google “water cooler.” It was a time when the word “influence” had nothing to do with a paid profession. Today, reality tv hopefuls have two clear objectives: amass social media followers, and get brand deals. If you get to sleep with a hot person — or three —that’s simply a bonus. There’s been a shift from “are you here for the right reasons?” to: there are no wrong reasons to be on a reality show.

 In the age of the internet, audiences are not content to merely sit and watch. Reality TV is now a team sport, and many of us have been training for years. There are facebook groups, sub-reddits, TikTok channels, podcasts — all dedicated to dissecting every sordid detail of these shows, complete with our own predictions, recaps, analysis, and though few of us are qualified - diagnoses. So if a contestant has a skeleton in their closet, you can be sure it won’t stay there long. Someone will find it, and that someone will post it online. 

The Bachelor franchise is no stranger to scandal. Chris Soules, the Season 19 lead, was arrested after a 2017 car crash that killed Kenny Mosher and later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of leaving the scene of an accident. I actually covered that story in an episode of Criminality podcast- perhaps the only quasi “qualification” I have to even write this. Amanda Stanton, a contestant on Season 20 and a fixture on Bachelor in Paradise, was arrested in 2018 on a domestic violence charge following an altercation with her then-boyfriend; the case was later dismissed.

Though not a criminal offense, even the show’s original host, Chris Harrison, couldn’t escape controversy. In 2021. Harrison was fired after publicly supporting a contestant from the first season featuring a Black bachelor amid backlash over her past attendance at a racist, antebellum-themed party. 

Those are just a few examples from a much longer list—but it’s important to note: those incidents came after their time on The Bachelor/Bachelorette. Still troubling, but an important distinction. What’s happening now with Taylor Frankie Paul is different—and, arguably, predictable, given her past, including a 2023 domestic violence charge. Which brings us to MomTok—and to Taylor Frankie Paul, a citizen not of Bachelor Nation, but of the far messier, far more profitable ecosystem that has replaced it.

Taylor Frankie Paul, a 32-year-old former Mormon from Utah, is a reality TV star best known as the breakout figure behind “MomTok”—a group of Mormon and ex-Mormon Utah moms who danced and duck-lipped their way to millions of TikTok followers. In 2022, their notoriety exploded when Paul revealed their “soft swinging” lifestyle online. What had been niche internet content became a national story—because when young, attractive Mormon moms say they swing, we listen. And while we listened, MomTok got paid. Two years later, Hulu turned it into The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (SLOMW). The show shattered expectations.

SLOMW outperformed The Kardashians, becoming the #1 most-watched unscripted show on the network. Hulu didn’t waste time capitalizing on its success. Season 1 premiered on September 6, 2024. As I write this, it’s March 2026, and season 4 has already dropped. Production is accelerating to keep pace with our voracious appetite for this formulaic yet completely unique reality show.

SLOMW offers a peek into the Instagrammable lives of young Utah moms who are very much adults—the women range from 24 to 32, and they have homes (neutral modern farmhouses), cars (luxury SUVs), children (so many kids), and husbands or ex-husbands. Yet they stir drama like the very best of high schoolers. It’s a strange juxtaposition: youth and adulthood, wealth and “working” (they all create content for a living), motherhood and dating. I’m not sure we’ve seen anything quite like it. It’s like Bravo’s Real Housewives franchises if the women were younger, tech-savvy, and navigating varying degrees of religious trauma—or 16 and Pregnant, if they were a little older and rich.

With the wild success of Hulu’s SLOMW, it’s no surprise that The Bachelorette, an ABC property, would look to cross-pollinate. Enter Taylor Frankie Paul—the franchise’s first single mom, with three kids and two baby daddies (for anyone interested in details). From a network executive’s perspective, the move makes perfect sense. The Bachelor and The Bachelorette have struggled to grow their audience. Ratings are down, cynicism is up, and the show feels bland compared to competitors like Love Is Blind, Love Island, and The Ultimatum.

In Taylor, they saw more than an eligible lead. She’s a fiery, telegenic protagonist with a massive following—a chance to bring in a new audience, and more importantly, a cool one, already primed to buy whatever Taylor is selling. But beyond the terms sheet and the ratings projections, very little about this casting choice makes sense.

There are plenty of anecdotal reasons why I don’t think Ms. Paul is the right pick for The Bachelorette, but there’s really only one that matters: she was charged with domestic assault in 2023. This wasn’t buried—it played out publicly, and even on SLOMW, another ABC-owned property. Taylor was arrested and later pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, with other charges dropped. And now, just weeks before the premiere, she is reportedly part of an active domestic assault investigation, according to the Draper City Police Department.

This is unfolding post-production, ahead of the March 22 premiere, and during filming for season 5 of SLOMW—which has reportedly been shut down amid the investigation. ABC now has a real problem on its hands: air a fully produced season starring someone at the center of an active investigation, or shelve it and lose millions.

At a time when the safety of women and girls is under constant threat, it seems reasonable to expect that a network would avoid casting someone with a documented history of violent behavior—regardless of gender—on a show built around dating, sex, and relationships. But the mind-melting success of SLOMW has proven too powerful an incentive. In reality TV, sex sells, mess matters, and chaos reigns.

And the truth is, the Bachelor franchise is tired. It’s 2026, and audiences are no longer buying what it’s selling. Instead of sunsetting the show—or meaningfully reinventing it—ABC cast a highly traumatized, undeniably compelling young woman whose star is rising faster than you can finish a dirty soda.

To be clear, I am actually team Taylor. My message is aimed squarely at ABC. To borrow from another reality TV icon, Sutton Brown: “You’ve had your fun. Let the mouse go.” ABC, you are the cat. The Bachelor franchise is the mouse. Taylor is the cheese—and in reality TV, the trap is the whole point.