The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives may be on a production pause, but news circling the series’ cast has not slowed down.
Jessi Draper appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast Wednesday, where she joined Alex Cooper to discuss the ins and outs of her marriage, having recently announced she is getting divorced. However, the host noted at the top of their interview that the episode was filmed last Friday, March 20, and the two first addressed the fallout after a video was leaked of the events leading up to her Mormon Wives co-star’s Taylor Frankie Paul‘s 2023 domestic violence arrest.
Draper said the Mormon Wives cast knew there was footage of the incident but had never seen it, noting that she did not want to judge Paul in a dark moment.
“The police had [the video] and they talked about it, and we all just were like, OK. I don’t like to judge someone in their darkest moment. I don’t want to judge the person, I’ll judge the mistake,” she said. “And Taylor really has made a lot of changes, and that’s what’s so hard for me, is this is my real friend, and she does have a really good heart and I love her so much.”
The reality star and businesswoman added that seeing the video was “so hard, because there’s so much pain underneath the surface for Taylor.” She continued, “I tell her this all the time, that it’s not who Taylor is. She got caught in a really bad cycle, and just seeing that video, and yes, the child being involved is awful; everyone involved is really hard. But Taylor’s such a good person and she’s made some mistakes, so has Dakota, and I’m not saying any of it’s right, but I know Taylor as a person, and it’s so easy to speculate about these people on a reality show.”
“I think when you watch [the show,] we’re characters, we’re not real people, but this is our real lives. And I’ve seen Taylor in her darkest moments, holding her, crying, I’ve been there for her, so I know what goes on behind-the-scenes,” Draper said. “I want this to be maybe a wake up call for them, and let’s get them healthy and happy and move forward, and I believe people can come back from things like this. I just want the kids to be safe and happy and healthy.”
When Draper was announced as the latest guest on Cooper’s podcast, Paul commented on a promotional video on the Call Her Daddy Instagram in support of her co-star. The Bachelorette season 22 lead wrote, “We love a person that speaks truth even when difficult.”
Draper’s Call Her Daddy episode was also filmed a day after ABC announced it would pull Paul’s season of The Bachelorette last Thursday. She told Cooper that she “wasn’t super surprised” when the news came out, “because I felt like there was a lot of discourse online that they probably needed to.” However, Draper said she was “so sad” because she saw Paul during filming for the dating show, “and she was a different person.”
“I saw Taylor during that journey, and she was a different person. I genuinely feel like she needed to get away from Dakota. She stepped into a really confident, amazing era. I saw her twice, and I was like, ‘Your aura’s different. Your energy’s different.’ And it was like the old Taylor again,” she added. “So I am so sad because I really want people to see that side of Taylor, and maybe one day they will, who knows.”
Right after ABC announced The Bachelorette season 22 had been pulled, Draper said she received no heads-up about the news, and Paul called her shortly after. “Taylor was calling me, I had two missed calls from her and I was like, ‘Oh, shit,’ so I answered and she was like, ‘How are you?’”
The Mormon Wives star herself was navigating her own personal conflict last Thursday, as her husband, Jordan Ngatikaura, notably filed for divorce (on the same day as the heavy news cycle). Draper said she was “blindsided” when he filed because they had agreed to do so together and had not told their children prior.
Elsewhere, Draper told Cooper that she had spoken to Paul just ahead of the filming of the podcast episode, “and she seemed pretty positive today. And I think she knows that this is going to be a long and scary journey. And the thing about Taylor, she always tells the truth. She’s known for that, and I think she’s going to handle this in the best way possible. And I think she’s taking a beat to figure that out.”
The Mormon Wives star also explained speculation of when filming on season five officially halted. The cast has indicated that they were the ones to communicate that they wanted to stop production, though following the publishing of an NBC News report on Friday, which detailed a March 7 Zoom call with the cast and three Disney executives, including Rob Mills, The Hollywood Reporter reported that the call was held for executives to tell the women the show was going on pause amid their own investigation, separate from police.
On the podcast, Draper explained that the first pause came from production “when we found out he filed a police report. So this was before it broke,” referring to news that a second domestic assault investigation was initiated by the Draper City Police Department following a February incident involving Dakota Mortensen. (The police told People that “allegations have been made in both directions” and “contact was made with involved parties on [Feb.] 24th and 25th.”)
A second pause in production came from the Mormon Wives cast, Draper said. “A little bit before news broke, but we knew it probably was going to, us girls decided, so we went to production and the network and they were all so supportive,” she said.
“Me and the girls, we did decide to stop filming when we found this out, because we were starting to hear things a little bit before it leaked, and we just didn’t want to be filming and say the wrong thing on camera, not knowing the whole story yet,” she explained. “We didn’t want to have to process all this information for the first time and then also be speaking about it. So we just thought for everyone’s mental health, let’s take a beat and not film right now.”
Draper also noted that she was shocked that Mortensen decided to file a report about the alleged February incident “because I’m sure there are situations in the past where he could have and didn’t, and same with her, so because of that, I was like, ‘Why now?’ But I don’t know the reason behind it. Everyone’s kind of speculating on that, but I think maybe he had hit a limit. I genuinely have no idea.”
The Mormon Wives star admitted that she does not know what all of the news circling Paul means for the future of the Hulu show, but that they’re waiting for the dust to settle before jumping back into filming. However, she did note that she would potentially feel comfortable to pick up cameras since the information is now public.
Draper explained, “I think now we’re at a point where we’re like, OK, the world knows and the info’s out there, and so now we’re good and we can speak on the things we know and we can talk about it in a real way, rather than before, we were like, ‘We don’t even know if this is gonna get out,’ so we didn’t know if we could even talk about it when we were filming. Now, we can.”
Early Wednesday, after Draper’s episode of Call Her Daddy was released, NBC News reported that Paul is under investigation for an alleged third domestic violence incident, also involving her ex Mortensen, that allegedly occurred in 2024. (All three alleged incidents have involved Paul and Mortensen.)
