Taylor Frankie Paul Season 5 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is here, and it hits the ground running with the messiest storyline the show has tackled yet. Production was paused for two months after a legal dispute between Taylor and ex Dakota Mortensen, and the fallout shapes almost everything in this shortened run of episodes on Hulu.
What happened between Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen
Before a single scene played out, season 5 opened with a title card explaining the situation plainly: ‘In May 2026, the Secret Lives cast returned to finish filming interviews following a 2-month production pause … without Taylor.’
In March 2026, TMZ reported that production had ‘hit an unexpected pause’ on the show because of a ‘blowup’ between the former couple that was ‘intense enough that filming couldn’t continue as planned.’ The following month, authorities confirmed to Us Weekly that Taylor would not be charged in connection with the incident. Filming then resumed, but without Taylor or Whitney Leavitt.
The legal picture went further than the production pause alone. According to E! Online, Dakota filed for a protective order against Taylor, and was awarded temporary custody of their son as a result. A hearing was scheduled for 7 April. That custody development adds real weight to Taylor’s on-camera claim that Dakota was ‘trying to ruin her life.’
Taylor Frankie Paul Season 5 confessionals: what she said
Taylor was absent from most of the filming, but she did record a handful of confessionals. In those sit-downs, she laid out her relationship timeline with Dakota, explaining how things unravelled after she got engaged to Doug Mason on her scrapped season of The Bachelorette.
‘I came home [in January]. Night one we were texting … and then I don’t know how it got to the point where he came over to my house, and it was late,’ she said, admitting she had hooked up with Dakota after The Bachelorette. The engagement to Doug was still very much on at that point.
‘That is where things get trickier, because I still have feelings,’ she said of Dakota. She described the pull as something she could not easily switch off. ‘When you have an addiction, there’s not a lot that is more powerful than that drug.’ She eventually called off the engagement to Doug, and across season 5 appeared to rekindle things with ex Ben Lambert.
The last time viewers see Taylor in the season, she and Dakota are in a heated argument about their relationship in front of their friends. It is not a clean ending.
How the season wraps and what comes next
Season 5 runs to only five episodes, a direct consequence of the production pause cutting filming short. In the final moments, the rest of MomTok sat with the admission that the group was ‘in shambles.’ There is no resolution on Taylor’s place in the cast, and no confirmed return.
The season closed with one last message: ‘To Be Continued.’ Whether Taylor features in a potential sixth series remains open. Cast member Layla has confirmed the show is coming back for season 6, so the question of Taylor’s involvement will presumably be answered then.