The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives stars are giving Dakota Mortensen credit where credit is due.
“Okay, I actually liked that he did that video. I was with him the next day, and I was like, ‘I love that you did that because you just made fun of yourself,’” Jessi Ngatikaura exclusively told Us Weekly earlier this month, referring to Dakota’s reaction to the news that his ex, Taylor Frankie Paul, was named the new Bachelorette for the upcoming season of the hit reality dating show.
“And he’s like, ‘I had to, I have to laugh at it, or else everyone’s gonna do it for me,’” she continued while attending the Page Six Virtual Reali-Tea “VRT Awards” 2025 at City Winery. “So I thought it was good.”
Before ABC announced the reality star would lead the next iteration of the hit reality dating show, Taylor opened up to Us about how she thought her ex would handle the news.
“I have not confirmed it with him. It’s just not something that’s been on, like, my priority list to confirm with him,” she exclusively told US at the time. “I don’t know exactly how he’ll react or feel, but he does know that we opened the gates of dating other people. [He’ll] probably [be] sad. I assume that it’s like, ‘Whoa, she’s gonna be dating people, a lot, and then also in front of me,’ and that’s probably gonna be kind of hard to watch.”
She added, “I can’t speak for him, but I’d assume it wouldn’t be the best news he’s heard on that day.”
Fans first met Taylor on season 3 of the hit Hulu show shortly after she was involved in a “soft swinging” sex scandal that ended her marriage to Tate Paul. (The exes share daughter Indy, 7, and son Ocean, 4.) She later moved on with Dakota, and the pair welcomed son Ever in March 2024 before calling it quits.
Dakota eventually did address his ex’s new role in a video shared via TikTok.
“I’m happy for Tay, and I hope she finds happiness,” the reality TV star captioned the September 12 upload, which featured Dakota lip-syncing to Lindsay Lohan’s memorable Super Bowl commercial in which she pokes fun at The Bachelor.
“Hi my name is Lindsay and I’m searching for love,” Lohan, 39, said in the parody. “I’m recently single, I think, and I’m looking for someone I can spend the rest of my life with — or at least the rest of my probation with. A little about me: I’m an actress, a singer [and] an entrepreneur.”
Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen‘s complicated romance was thrust into the spotlight on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives — and their relationship status remains unclear. The couple started dating before the show premiered on Hulu. Dakota was Taylor’s first public boyfriend after her divorce from husband Tate Paul due to a high-profile “soft […]
In his own voice, Dakota then said, “Is this how it works to be the next Bachelor?”
Instead of worrying about what her ex may or may not think about her dating show debut, Taylor told Us she’s focused on finding a way to walk off the set engaged.
“That’s the goal here, and as my mom likes to say [that] I do fall in love quickly, and that’s also the reason I did it,” Taylor told Us at the time. “I always call myself a lover girl because I, like, fall for people and I have done that in the past. Obviously, I got married young, and the first guy I dated was my second baby daddy — so it was just very quick.”
Season 3 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives starts streaming on Hulu November 13 and Taylor’s season of The Bachelorette will premiere on ABC in 2026.
