The stars of the reality show “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” reflected on the aftermath of the swingers sex scandal that rocked their tight-knit group.
In 2022, a group of wives and mothers known as Mormon MomTok, who rose to TikTok fame due to their viral dance and lip-sync videos, were left reeling when founding member Taylor Frankie Paul revealed on a livestream that she and now ex-husband Tate Paul were involved in “soft swinging” with some of the friends featured in her social media clips.
After Paul’s revelations, other members of MomTok found themselves bombarded with speculation that they and their husbands were also swingers. The new Hulu series “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” which stars MomTok members Paul, Mikayla Matthews, Jessi Ngatikaura, Mayci Neeley, Whitney Leavitt, Demi Engemann, Jennifer Affleck and Layla Taylor, explores the fallout from the scandal.
During an interview with Fox News Digital, the cast members opened up about their reactions to the controversy and its impact.
“I remember being like, ‘Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, she’s making it seem like everyone was swinging,'” Matthews recalled of watching Paul’s livestream.
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After the scandal broke, several MomTok members took to social media to deny they were swingers, while others have stayed silent.
While speaking with Fox News Digital, Matthews teased that it would be revealed in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” whether she and her husband, Jace, were involved in the swinging. The MomTokers’ husbands and partners will also be featured in the series.
“You’ll just have to wait and watch the show if we’re swingers,” she said. “But, I mean, I feel like, for me, as long as I know who I am, that’s all that matters.”
She continued, “I definitely had my family members being like, ‘Wait, are you swinging? Are you and Jace swinging?’ But yeah, I wouldn’t say. I think in the group it definitely shook up the dynamic a little bit because people do have kids in school, and they’re saying, ‘Oh, well, principals at my school are saying this, and they’re doing this.’“
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While Matthews said that her and her husband’s personal and professional lives were not immediately impacted by the scandal, they recently suffered a blow due to their involvement in the reality show.
“My husband actually lost his job over the trailer in the show,” she said. “And so it’s kind of affected me more now than after everything that’s happened over these years.”
During her interview with Fox News Digital, Engemann shared that the scandal put her in an awkward position due to changes in her personal life.
“I had just gone through a divorce and gotten remarried, and I think I already had speculations as to why I got divorced and all of this. And so to have this drop, what it did was like, ‘Ugh, perfect timing,’” she recalled. “I already had people assuming the worst and speculating and I had my stepkids coming home from school saying, ‘My friends and teachers are asking me if you were involved.’ And it was kind of a shock for sure.”
Engemann explained that the scandal was challenging for her stepchildren because they had to “navigate ‘Oh, now their friends think that we’re involved in this’ and the other parents are worried and concerned about behavior going on in the home. So yeah, it definitely had a direct effect to all of us.”
She told Fox News Digital that she and her husband were “very close” to Paul and her boyfriend, Dakota Mortenson, at the time, which further fueled speculation that they were involved in swinging.
“[We were] going to parties, not swinging parties, but hangout parties where none of that stuff was going down and there were pictures of us with them,” she said. “And so it was very heavily implied that we were involved. And to be clear, we were not involved. We didn’t even know that it was going down. So, yeah, it definitely threw a huge bomb right in the middle of MomTok, but in our own personal lives for sure.”
While speaking with Fox News Digital, Ngatikaura recalled that all the ladies came under scrutiny due to their public friendships with Paul, many of which later fell apart.
“The whole group was rocked by it because, since we were all kind of close friends on the internet, people just assumed everyone in MomTok was involved,” she said. “So, it was hard to navigate everyone just all of a sudden throwing accusations at you because of misconceptions.”
“And the friendship group definitely dissipated,” Ngatikaura continued. “And the cast of the show is a little bit different than the actual MomTok group. Because of that, there were a lot of people who didn’t want anything to do with Taylor or MomTok anymore. So for me, I was just kind of focused on making sure the friendship stayed intact, and that Taylor was okay. But it definitely had its ups and downs. And you see that play out on the show.”
Ngatikaura explained that some of the husbands began to feel insecure about their marriages due to the scandal.
“I would say that a lot of the husbands in the group that didn’t know it was happening until the swinging scandal broke were like, ‘Oh my gosh, could that happen to me now?’” she said. “And I think that kind of led into jealousy with the husbands, and you see some of that play out on the show. There’s insecurity now because you never know what could happen behind the scenes, you know? So, I think it definitely rocked a lot of relationships. But again, maybe it needed to happen to make those relationships stronger.”
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During her interview with Fox News Digital, Neeley said that she and Leavitt, who formed the original Mormon MomTok group with Paul and Matthews, were not involved in swinging, so they were “not affected a ton.”
“I feel like for us, we were kind of figuring out what was going on, like, we were getting a lot of attention and whatnot,” she said. “After a couple weeks, it got a little old, at least for me. I was like, ‘OK, I’m sick of trying to defend myself that I’m not a swinger.'”
However, Neeley said that the scandal sharply divided their once close MomTok community.
“It kind of split in half,” she said. “It was almost like you had to take teams and who you wanted to support. And it was quite dramatic.”
Leavitt, who works as an influencer along with many of the other MomTokers, weighed in on whether the scandal had affected her business.
“I don’t feel like it changed my persona on social media,” she said. “If anything, it just drove an audience that was just so curious.”
However, Taylor noted that several companies she was working with “definitely hesitated” after the scandal erupted.
“Especially here in Utah,” she said. “Religion is very dense here. So I think that any type of scandal-related thing, companies are a little bit hesitant on. And I notice that a couple of companies ghosted me.”
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“I think just everyone here is just very conscious of reputation,” Taylor added.
Affleck said she was the least impacted of the “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” stars since she was not a member of MomTok at the time.
“I was just a follower,” she said. “I was just an outsider, observing. And I had somewhat of a following then, but I was not a part of MomTok at all. And so for me, it was just honestly a little bit — just entertaining.”
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Not surprisingly, Paul was the most affected by the scandal. During the same livestream in which she revealed that she and Tate had been involved in a “soft swinging” group of fellow married Mormon couples, Paul announced that they were divorcing.
Paul said that the group had an agreement that they “wouldn’t go all the way” with their other partners. However, she admitted that she “did step out of the agreement” with one of the other husbands in the group.
“That’s where I messed up, and I, obviously, am losing everything that I have,” Paul said.
Paul told Fox News Digital that Tate was “in shock” after she revealed their swingers lifestyle on TikTok.
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“I think when it hit the internet, everyone was kind of in survival mode and, like, ‘What’s going on?'” she recalled. “[Tate] kind of quieted down and kind of just wanted to mind his own business.”
Paul continued, “He kind of just like got off social media and is living his life happy now, and I’m really happy for him.”
In February 2023, Paul was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. She was later charged with aggravated assault, two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, child abuse with injury and criminal mischief, according to Herriman police in Salt Lake County.
Paul pleaded guilty in August of that year to aggravated assault, while the other four charges were dismissed with prejudice.
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While speaking with Fox News Digital, Paul said the arrest was the “worst thing that I’ve gone through.”
“But I felt like I have learned from it,” she explained. ““Hitting rock bottom, there’s only one way to go, and it helped me to go up. So honestly, as bad as that night was, I think it was also like a blessing in disguise. Maybe could have saved my life in a weird way, like where I was just drowning in misery. So, you’ll see more of that on the show.”
A description for the show reads, “The scandalous world of a group of Mormon mom influencers implodes when they get caught in the midst of a swinging sex scandal that makes international headlines.”
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“Now, their sisterhood is shook to its core. Faith, friendship and reputations are all on the line. Will #MomTok be able to survive and continue to give the rulebook a run for its money, or will this group fall from grace?”
Looking back at the scandal, Taylor and Engemann said they believe it ultimately brought members of MomTok closer together.
“We found out pretty quickly who was authentic, who was genuine, who was here for the right reasons in MomTok, and l genuinely wanted to see growth and health in the relationships within MomTok,” she explained.
“And I think we rebuilt ourselves,” Taylor continued. “I think that people are going to be inspired to see how we navigated some pretty tough conversations and situations.”
“I love this group, that we all stood by each other,” Engemann said. “We stood by each other through the bad and the good, and I think it strengthened all of our relationships.”
All eight episodes of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” were released on Hulu on Sept. 6.
