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The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Production may be on pause, but the news surrounding the series’ cast hasn’t slowed down.
Jessie Draper appeared on Call her father Wednesday podcast, where she joined Alex Cooper to discuss the ins and outs of her marriage, after recently announcing she was getting divorced. However, the broadcaster indicated at the top of their interview that the episode was filmed last Friday, March 20, and the two first discussed its repercussions after a video was leaked of the events that preceded it. Mormon wives Taylor’s co-star Frankie Paul was arrested in 2023 for domestic violence.
Draper said Mormon wives The staff knew there was footage of the incident but had never seen it, stating that she did not want to judge Paul in a dark moment.
“The police had it [the video] And they talked about it, and we were all like, “Okay.” I don’t like to judge someone in their darkest moments. “I don’t want to judge the person, I’ll judge the wrong person. Taylor has already made a lot of changes, and that’s what’s so hard for me, is this is my real friend, and she has a really good heart and I love her so much,” she said.
The reality TV star and businesswoman added that watching the video was “very difficult, because there’s a lot of pain underneath the surface for Taylor.” She continued, “I tell her this all the time, it’s not who Taylor is. She’s stuck in a really bad cycle, and just seeing that video, and yeah, the child being involved is terrible; everyone involved is really hard. But Taylor is a good person and she made some mistakes, and so did Dakota, and I’m not saying any of that is true, but I know Taylor as a person, and it’s very easy to second guess these people on a reality show.”
“I think when you watch [the show,] We are characters, not real people, but this is our real life. “I’ve seen Taylor in her darkest moments, holding her and crying, and I’ve been there for her, so I know what happens behind the scenes,” Draper said. “I want this to maybe be a wake-up call for them, and let’s get them healthy and happy and move forward, and I think people can come back from things like this. I just want my kids to be safe and happy and healthy.”
When Draper was announced as the newest guest on Cooper’s podcast, Paul commented on a promotional video on Call her father Instagram to support her co-star. Bachelorette “We love someone who tells the truth even when it’s hard,” the Season 22 intro wrote.
Draper Call her father The episode was also filmed one day after ABC announced it was pulling Paul’s season Bachelorette Last Thursday. She told Cooper she “wasn’t too surprised” when the news broke, “because I felt like there was a lot of discourse online that they probably needed.”
However, Draper said she was “very sad” because she saw Paul while filming the dating show, “and she was a different person. I really feel like she needed to get away from Dakota. She had entered into a really confident, amazing age. I saw her twice, and I was like, ‘Your aura is different.’ Your energy is different.” “He was like the old Taylor again,” she added. “So I’m very sad because I really want people to see this side of Taylor, and maybe one day, who knows?”
Right after the ABC announcement Bachelorette Season 22 was pulled, and Draper said she received no alert about the news, and Paul contacted her shortly after. “Taylor was calling me, and I had two missed calls from her and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ so I answered and she was like, ‘How are you?’
the Mormon wives The star herself was navigating her personal struggle last Thursday, as her husband, Jordan Ngatekura, filed for divorce (on the same day as a heavy news cycle). Draper said she was “shocked” when she applied because they had agreed to do it together and had never told their children before.
Elsewhere, Draper told Cooper that she spoke to Paul ahead of filming the podcast episode, “and she seemed very positive today. And I think she knows that this is going to be a long, 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 the best way she can. And I think she’s making an effort to figure that out.”
the Mormon wives The star also clarified speculation about when filming on Season 5 would officially stop. The cast indicated they were the ones who communicated their desire to halt production, though an NBC News report published on Friday, detailing a March 7 Zoom call with the cast and three Disney executives, including Rob Mills, Hollywood Reporter She reported that a call had been made to executives to tell the women that the show would be taking a temporary hiatus amid their own investigations, separate from the police.
On the podcast, Draper explained that the first production hiatus came “when we found out he filed a police report. So this was before it blew up,” referring to the news that Draper’s city police department had launched a second domestic assault investigation following a February incident involving Dakota Mortensen. (She told the police the people “Allegations have been made in both directions” and “relevant parties have been contacted.” [Feb.] 24 and 25.”)
The second stop in production came from Mormon wives Draper said. “Just before the news broke, but we knew it was probably going to happen, we girls decided, so we went to production and the network and they were all very supportive,” she said.
She explained: “The girls and I decided to stop filming when we found out, because we started hearing things a little before they leaked, and we didn’t want to film and say the wrong thing in front of the camera, because we don’t know the whole story yet.” “We didn’t want to process all this information for the first time and then talk about it as well. So we thought just for the sake of 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 come forward about the alleged February incident “because I’m sure there are situations in the past that he could have done and not done, and it’s the same with her, and for that reason, I was like, ‘Why now?’
the Mormon wives The star admitted that she doesn’t know what all the news surrounding Paul means for the future of the Hulu show, but they are waiting for the dust to settle before returning to filming. However, she noted that she might feel comfortable with the cameras being caught since the information is now public.
Draper explained, “I think now we’ve gotten to a point where we’re saying, ‘Okay, the world knows and the information is out there, so now we’re good and we can talk about the things we know and we can talk about them in a real way,’ instead of before, we were saying, ‘We don’t even know if this is going to be published,’ 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 father Released, NBC News reported that Paul is under investigation for a third alleged domestic violence incident, also involving her ex-husband Mortensen, which allegedly occurred in 2024. (All three alleged incidents involved Paul and Mortensen.)
