As “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” gears up for its second season, one breakout star is bracing for the next wave of criticism.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Layla Taylor — who famously threw herself a divorce party during the Hulu show’s first season — opened up about the backlash the show has received from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She also revealed the “intense pressure” she often feels about oversharing aspects of her life on TV, and explained why she foresees “more hate” and judgment to follow this explosive second season.
“It’s been pretty positive for me,” Taylor, 24, said of the public’s response so far. “I was pretty quiet season one. I was a little bit more reserved, so I feel like there wasn’t necessarily much room for people to say much about me. But for the other girls, I know that they’re definitely under some heat after season one came out.”
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“I think with each season there will be more and more voices that become more active and more vocal,” she added. “And I could see that after season two, I could see some more hate on my end. But I think overall I felt good about my intentions and what I did throughout the seasons.”
Given the title of the show, one major wave of criticism came from the LDS Church, Taylor recalled.
WATCH: ‘SECRET LIVES OF MORMON WIVES’ STAR BRACES FOR MORE HATE AHEAD OF EXPLOSIVE SECOND SEASON
“I think that they’ve definitely kind of calmed down from their initial scare,” she said of the LDS Church‘s reaction to the first season. “I think when the show title was released before the initial show came out, definitely everyone was a little bit alarmed, and then the trailer came out and they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s worse’ in their brains. And then I think they finally saw the show and they’re like, ‘Okay, they’re not misrepresenting. I think that they’re just showing members at different levels within their faith that still have a genuine basis of relationship with God and a relationship with Jesus.'”
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“And that’s what it comes down to,” she added. “I just feel like we weren’t trying to come at the church in any way. I think they were maybe afraid that we were going to drag them. I don’t think that’s anyone’s intentions. Even the people like myself that aren’t active Mormons and Jessi [Ngatikaura] and a couple of the other girls, I think that we just wanted to show what our journey within their religion has been.”
This idea of fitting the LDS mold was a constant topic of conversation during the show’s first season. This next season will see certain cast members struggle with the repercussions of their actions from last season.
Jen Affleck’s husband, Zac — who received backlash after mistreating his wife during the first season — admitted to having some “nasty” interactions with churchgoers over the past year.
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“Jen still wants to go [to church] and I think eventually we will,” Zac admitted. “I feel not accepted. I also feel honestly embarrassed. We’ve had a couple nasty interactions with people [at church].”
“I had 50 to 100 DM’s saying, ‘You deserve to die’, ‘If I saw you in person, I’d kill you,'” he related.
“If you have a good relationship with God and you’re trying to figure it out with Him, I don’t think anything else matters,” Dakota Mortensen, Taylor Frankie Paul‘s on-again, off-again boyfriend, told Zac.
The first season of the Hulu series followed the dramatic aftermath of the swinging sex scandal exposed by Paul, the self-proclaimed creator of #MomTok.
Paul and her ex had agreed to a lifestyle that included having multiple partners, although the pair decided as a couple that they “wouldn’t go all the way.” When the scandal broke, she admitted that she “did step out of the agreement” and cheated on her ex with Mortensen.
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“I want people to have a better understanding of who I am,” Paul told People magazine at the time. “I wanted to be vulnerable and show people that when you hit rock bottom, there is hope.”
Ahead of the series premiere last year, some of the stars voiced their intentions of exposing their lives as “Mormon wives.”
“I hope when the show comes out that the church members will be a little more open-minded and realize that we’re not against them, we’re with them — we’re just showing our sins publicly,” Jessi Ngatikaura told the Daily Mail ahead of the premiere.
“I feel like it’s a lot of projection,” Paul added. “At the end of the day we’re not representing those people, we’re representing ourselves and our stories — and our message is that we’re not all the same and we don’t all live the same. There’s different spectrums of Mormonism and it’s unfortunate that we’re getting judged so harshly before they’ve even seen it.”
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From exposing their deepest, personal secrets to facing bouts of betrayal and jealousy, Taylor said putting their lives on reality television has come with “intense pressure.”
“There is definitely intense pressure to share everything. And then if you don’t share everything, then you’re hiding things,” she told Fox News Digital. “And then I get comments all the time about the plastic surgeries I’ve done to myself, or I get comments from people saying like, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know you’re a mom. You don’t share your kids. Why do you hide them?’ And my perspective on that, I’m like, I’m protecting them actually from people who make unnecessary comments.”
Taylor, who is a divorced mom of two, said she quickly learned that she’s not going to have the approval of everyone.
“I feel like it’s just you are never going to have everyone be your fan,” she said. “I feel like I just try to drown out everything because you don’t want the ego side of yourself to get too high, but then you don’t want to get overwhelmed by all the hate. And I just try to remember that at my core, who I am, and they show such— even though we’re filming for months at a time, they’re still showing such minimal parts of our lives. Just the big things and the big crazy moments and the moments that you lose your cool one day or the moments that you’re crying. So they don’t show everything as vulnerable as we can be.”
“You just have to remember that it’s a very small percentage that the world’s seeing, and if they jump to conclusions off of that small percentage, and that’s on them, but the people in your life know who you are,” she added.
WATCH: ‘SECRET LIVES OF MORMON WIVES’ STAR CONFRONTS CHURCH BACKLASH AHEAD OF EXPLOSIVE SECOND SEASON
While being on a reality show has its ups and downs, Taylor said she’s learning so much about herself and applying those lessons to everyday life.
“I feel like I’m still learning so much about myself. I am only 24, so young, and I got married at a young age, and I feel like I was thrown into being a wife and then thrown into motherhood very fast and abruptly. Blessed, obviously from my babies. But I think that I’m still learning myself and learning who I am as a person and learning to not shift myself because of who I’m with,” she explained.
“And that’s something that I was experiencing in my [last] relationship,” she added of her recent and now ex-boyfriend, Cameron. “And I was kind of molding myself into what he wanted for a partner. And looking back, I am never going to do that again. You either like me for who I am or you don’t like me at all. And that’s something that I’m learning and growing with time is accepting myself for who I truly am at my core, and my right person will like me for who I am.”
The second season of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” is now streaming on Hulu.
