23-05-2025
‘We're missionaries, in a weird way': The Mormon wives scandalising the church
Mormonism is having a moment. On TikTok and Instagram; in hit stage and TV shows; amongst the believers forming snaking queues outside churches from Salt Lake City to South Kensington. In the era of Trump's America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with all its conservative rules and regulations, is riding a wave of increasing popularity.
Social media is dominated by Mormon 'trad wife' influencers such as Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm, who present an idyllic, old-fashioned daily existence filled with Bible study, baking and breastfeeding their never ending supply of children to their millions of followers. Sales of The Book of Mormon, the LDS's holy scripture, have doubled since the start of the millennium, with the church – which has around 16 million active members worldwide – reporting that more than 200 million copies had been distributed by 2023 (up from 100m in 2000).
But there's another factor at play in the church's resurgence. Last year, reality TV gained a new megahit in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, a soapy, scandalous series about a group of female Mormon influencers (known as MomTokkers) living in the state of Utah. Disney reports that season two, which launched last week, has already been watched by five million people (a marked increase from the first season premiere, according to the studio, although the increase has not been publicly declared).
It includes all of your regular reality TV ingredients: ex-best friends turned enemies, villainous backstabbers, outlandish gossip (illicit sex! Adultery! Gambling!) and carefully controlled social events that, 99 per cent of the time, end in screaming matches. Set against the backdrop of a swinging scandal that almost tore apart the lives of some of the show's cast back in 2022, it's a recipe for TV gold.
That scandal centred mostly on Taylor Frankie Paul, the show's main catalyst for entertainment: she swears, gets arrested, cries over her volatile relationships, screams in other women's faces. She was also the one to reveal three years ago that she, her ex-husband and several other Mormon couples – all with large social media followings – were engaging in 'soft swinging'. Divorce followed for both Paul and season two's new cast member Miranda McWhorter; pariah status seemed set in stone. Until it wasn't, and fears that they would be shunned by the church instead resulted in a hit TV show about their personal lives.
Season one set Paul up as a star capable of rivalling reality TV's most famous agents of chaos (The Real Housewives of Atlanta's NeNe Leakes, Love Island's Maura Higgins, Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner) with her messy family and relationship dramas and love of confrontation. But there was always a niggling feeling amongst viewers that we wouldn't understand the full story until McWhorter – Paul's one-time best friend, fellow leading MomTok influencer and, vitally, swinger – shared her side.
And finally, in season two, we get just that. McWhorter, 27, appears on screen insisting that her sole motivation for joining the cast was financial: she was freshly divorced from teenage sweetheart Chase (who reportedly expressed his feelings for Paul, after the swinging scandal) with two young children to provide for. The other women are immediately furious, and accuse her of 'clout chasing' – meaning she wants in on the lucrative brand deals they've all come to expect as a result of the show's popularity. But it's evident that, without McWhorter and Paul – the original MomTokkers, along with Camille Munday – none of them would have a show to begin with.
Much of McWhorter's screen time is spent cleaning up the messy details of what the other cast members had heard about the scandal: was there sex involved? (No). So it was just kissing? (Apparently). The breakdown of her marriage to Chase is addressed during a fiery episode when he confronts Dakota, the father of Paul's youngest child, but it's mostly told through the prism of her relationship with Paul. Over a hilariously classic reality TV-setup of a serene lunch date gone wrong (any Made in Chelsea fans will know the sort), McWhorter and Paul duke it out, eventually declaring that they've resolved their differences.
Speaking to me over Zoom, McWhorter says she knew the other cast members would be unsure of her motivations for joining the show.
'Obviously none of us are doing this for charity,' she says. 'But that's just an added benefit, because I've been able to formulate real friendships'. To keep things separate, she says she and co-star Whitney Leavitt work under a different management to the other women, meaning they're not competing for the same deals. It wasn't just the other women who took a while to get on board with her joining the cast, however. Her family had their own concerns. 'It's definitely been a difficult challenge for them,' McWhorter says. 'Even them accepting my different perspectives on the church itself, and where I'm at with it, has been hard.'
@maycineeley 😭💔🫶🏼 #momtok ♬ original sound - kardashianshulu
Her main reason for joining the show late, she says, was to navigate her divorce off-camera – and to let the heat from the swinging scandal die down. 'There was a lot of judgement during the swinging scandal, and now that the show has come out of it, it's more acceptable. [Other Mormons] don't look at me the way they used to, which is unfortunate, but also kind of the name of the game sometimes'. Being around Paul, too, had felt difficult and triggering – 'I wasn't sure if I was ready to put myself in that position' – but having resolved their differences on screen, it appears to have worked out.
However, the success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has caused some consternation in the church itself, with other LDS members concerned it offers a negative window to their everyday lives. Prior to the release of the first season, the church issued a statement on its official website decrying the 'stereotypes' and 'gross misrepresentations' made about their members via the show. Though some of the cast members are devout followers (Jennifer Affleck, Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley, Leavitt), the others are largely women who grew up in the church but have since distanced themselves from it: Paul, Layla Taylor, Demi Engemann, Jessi Ngatikaura.
Affleck was publicly called out on social media by her extended family for choosing to take part and broadcast her marriage troubles. A prominent Mormon fashion influencer, who also lives in Utah, tells me that some of the girls in the show have become laughing stocks, viewed by their communities as fame-hungry and ungodly.
The LDS's famously strict rules – no coffee or alcohol, definitely no sex before marriage – are bent to the women's will rather than followed: coffee gives way to litres and litres of fizzy soda; beers are sneakily sipped at pool parties; the women attend a Chippendales strip show on a trip to Las Vegas. Many Mormons choose to wear holy 'temple garments', made up of cotton shorts and vest, differing via gender, under their modest clothing. But in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, crop tops and mini skirts reign supreme; it's immediately noticeable just how many of these women have had Botox and facial filler.
They're also all addicted to TikTok – or the #MomTok corner of it, anyway, where they have been luring in followers with dance and lifestyle videos since the pandemic. Leavitt, the show's resident villain (her arguments with Paul dominated much of the first season, and in the second, she regularly fights with Engemann and Matthews, who accuse her of being vindictive and drama-hungry), boasts one of the biggest follower counts, with almost three million fans across various platforms. She felt the sting of her large following for the first time four years ago, when a video of her dancing in front of her son's hospital incubator while he was being treated in intensive care (he is now healthy) went viral and the internet branded her a monster en masse. Then came the show, in which Leavitt's love for confrontation put her at the epicentre of seemingly every drama or argument.
The villain role was one she took on by accident, she tells me. 'I can't help but be myself, and unfortunately, that gets me in trouble sometimes,' she laughs. New viewers may be surprised, given she looks like the vision of wholesomeness with her prim dresses, simple blonde bob and apparent love of being pregnant (the 32-year-old welcomes her third child in season two). The outfits aren't the only thing masking her tough edge – when I speak to her, her soft voice and girly giggles make you think more of a teenage cheerleader than a reality TV antagonist.
In the show, Leavitt is unafraid to remove herself from toxic situations or skip events populated by cast members she doesn't like entirely, a decision she says she made to make her 'mental health a priority' and protect her family. As for criticism from the public, who argue the show makes a mockery of the church, she responds: 'I think it's a lot louder online than it is in person. People send me comments and I'm like 'Are you even Mormon?' I still go to church, and it's very welcoming. Obviously people love to talk about the show and they want the behind-the-scenes, inside scoop, and of course I zip my lips'. If anything, she suggests, the show has been a way of spreading the word of the church: 'Maybe we're actually missionaries, in a weird way'.
@taylorfrankiepaul Don't ask me how I know all the trendy trends though. #momtok #coparenting ♬ original sound - 🧍🏾♀️🧍🏾♀️
For all the controversy, though, the success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives seems only likely to keep growing. Its stars appear on US talk shows and other reality programmes (including Vanderpump Villa), it has millions of viewers, and a quick search of the title on TikTok not only pulls up clips from the show but countless videos advising how fans can channel the style, lifestyle choices or beauty treatments of the cast.
For those worried about the rise of 'trad wife' dynamics, especially in the US, as reproductive and civil rights come increasingly under threat, the show's popularity hints at a darker trend: where beautiful women, meant to serve as perfect housewives who bend to their husband's every whim, monetise their submission – in turn making said husbands very, very rich. These women exist on a corner of the internet not that far removed from Andrew Tate's legions of twisted followers, who decry any woman who isn't conventionally attractive or willing to conform to traditional values. One only has to look at Affleck, who spends the majority of her time on screen denying to the other women that her husband is abusive. The misogynistic insults he throws at her, and his expectations that she be a full-time stay at home wife while also providing financially through her work on social media, make them believe otherwise.
Fans of the show – and its cast – would argue that the women's decision to monetise their social media content is an easy way to earn big bucks; the best of both worlds where they can simultaneously rear children, churn out countless loaves of homemade sourdough and become financially secure. McWhorter and Leavitt are adamant that the best part of being a cast member is the ready-made friendships with other women – but scanning their plethora of brand deals online, one imagines it's more likely to be the thousands of dollars sitting in the bank.
