taylor frankie paul video tmz: Taylor Frankie Paul video forces ABC Bachelorette 2026 cancelled: What happened between Paul and Dakota Mortensen?
“In light of the new video that emerged today, we have decided not to move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time and our focus is on supporting the family,” Disney Entertainment Television said in a statement. he said.
Taylor Frankie Paul Video TMZ
The statement appears to reference a 2023 video released by TMZ on Thursday showing a fight between Paul and Dakota Mortensen. Paul was arrested in 2023 and charged with other crimes, including aggravated assault and domestic violence in front of a child. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated assault that August; Other charges were dismissed.
A police spokesman in Draper City, Utah, told People magazine that there is an open domestic violence investigation into Paul and his former partner, Mortensen, and that allegations have been made in both directions. Mortensen is the father of one of Paul’s three children.
Representatives for Paul and Mortensen did not immediately return requests for comment. ABC’s statement did not include details about what the network plans to do with the show’s time slot.
Paul, who promoted Season 22 on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday and on the red carpet ahead of Sunday’s Oscars broadcast, was an unlikely choice to helm “The Bachelorette.” Unlike previous leads, the 31-year-old actor has never appeared on “The Bachelor” before; this was a departure from previous seasons’ typical practice of selecting runners-up. However, her choice provided synergy as she also stars in a Hulu reality show “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” Both Hulu and ABC are owned by Disney. In a statement confirming the casting in October, ABC credited Paul with “igniting ‘MomTok’ and going viral by pulling back the curtain on the soft-rocking stage of Salt Lake.”
Paul has become known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who share their lives on TikTok. He made news in 2022 when he announced that he and his wife had “given up” on the agreement they had made regarding relationships with other couples and that they were getting a divorce.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Women” is released in 2024. While Season 4 aired last week, filming on Season 5 had already been paused due to the investigation.
“This was a decision us girls made,” Paul’s co-star Mikayla Matthews said on Instagram on Wednesday in response to a fan question about the production freeze. “Despite everything that was going on, we didn’t feel comfortable shooting.”
In December, Paul shared on Instagram that filming had wrapped on “The Bachelorette,” hosted by Jesse Palmer.
Kate Casey, a former crisis communications expert who hosts unscripted television shows on her podcast “Reality Life with Kate Casey,” said casting Paul was essentially an experiment gone wrong by Disney.
“I think they were trying to shake things up, and it makes sense because the ecosystem is full of boundary-pushing dating shows like ‘F-Boy Island’ and ‘Love Island,’ and ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette’ have been historically sweet,” said Casey, who has recorded more than 1,500 episodes of his podcast.
Casey said network executives likely believed casting Paul would benefit not only from “Secret Lives of Mormon Women” viewership but also from its 6.1 million-strong TikTok following. “The thought was probably: ‘We’re going to find a new audience,’ and the new audience really is the most coveted audience in all of entertainment,” he said.
