“The Bachelorette” season with Taylor Frankie Paul canceled after 2023 video surfaces, ABC says

ABC has scrubbed the upcoming season of “The Bachelorette,” starring Taylor Frankie Paul, citing a newly released video from 2023.

Thursday’s unprecedented cancellation of the already filmed season of the long-running reality television show comes days before it was to premiere, on Sunday. 

“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of ‘The Bachelorette’ at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News.

The statement appeared to reference a 2023 video of an altercation between Paul and her ex-partner, Dakota Mortensen, that was published by TMZ on Thursday. Paul was arrested in 2023 and charged with aggravated assault and other offenses, including domestic violence in the presence of a child. She pleaded guilty that August to a misdemeanor charge of aggravated assault; the other charges were dismissed.

A police spokesperson in Draper City, Utah, told People magazine that there was an open domestic violence investigation of Paul and 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 didn’t immediately return The Associated Press’ requests for comment. ABC’s statement didn’t include details on what the network planned to do with the show’s time slot.

Paul, who was promoting Season 22 as recently as Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and on the red carpet before Sunday’s Oscars telecast, was an unusual choice to helm “The Bachelorette.” Unlike previous leads, the 31-year-old had not appeared on the “Bachelor” franchise before — a departure from the typical practice of casting runners-up from previous seasons.

Her selection did offer synergy, though, as she also stars on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a Hulu reality show. Both Hulu and ABC are owned by Disney. In a statement confirming her casting in October, ABC credited Paul with “igniting ‘MomTok’ and going viral for pulling back the curtain on Salt Lake’s soft-swinging scene.” 

Paul became known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sharing their lives on TikTok. She made news when she announced in 2022 that she had “stepped out” of an agreement with her husband in terms of relationships with other couples, and they were getting divorced.

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” premiered in 2024. While Season 4 was released last week, filming on Season 5 had already paused over the investigation. 

“It was a decision that all of us girls came up with,” Paul’s co-star Mikayla Matthews said Wednesday on Instagram in response to a fan question about the production freeze. “We didn’t feel comfortable filming with everything that was happening.”

Paul posted on Instagram in December that filming had wrapped on “The Bachelorette,” which is hosted by Jesse Palmer.