Now this is the most dramatic announcement ever: Taylor Frankie Paul, star of Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, is the new leading lady for ABC’s The Bachelorette.
In the early morning hours of September 10 (on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast, no less), it was announced that The Bachelorette will return for season 22 in 2026 with the reality star—and mom of three—at the helm.
Per ABC’s press release, “After igniting ‘MomTok’ and going viral for pulling back the curtain on Salt Lake’s soft-swinging scene in Hulu’s Emmy-nominated series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the 31-year-old Utah native is ready to trade headline-making heartbreak for hometown dates as she begins making her mark on Bachelor Nation.”
There’s plenty of shocking firsts in this announcement, namely being that this is the first time a Bachelorette lead hasn’t come from a previous season of The Bachelor. (The Bachelor, on the other hand, has more experience with this—the last contestant who didn’t come from a previous season was Matt James in 2021.)
While no specific date has been announced (ABC is only saying the “all-new season will debut in 2026”), it would seem that Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette will premiere in January, which is typically when The Bachelor airs. The Bachelorette took the summer off after Jenn Tran’s rather disastrous finale in 2024 (though Bachelor in Paradise did return this summer, somewhat in its place). There has also been a lot of shuffling behind-the-scenes with Scott Teti becoming executive producer and showrunner of the franchise, starting with Paradise this summer. Meanwhile, The Golden Bachelor also returns this month (Wednesday, September 24), so it kind of makes sense that The Bachelorette gets its turn back in the spotlight next.
The biggest surprise of all is Paul’s casting, of course. While single parents have been Bachelor leads and contestants before (Jason Mesnick had a son at the time, while Emily Maynard had a daughter), Paul has three children.
More so, as Glamour senior editor Stephanie McNeal wrote last year, “Paul and some of her gang of internet-famous Mormon wives and mothers were swingers. During the pandemic, [she and her fellow] Mormon, Utah-based moms who posted videos together dancing grew huge social followings as rumors ran wild that they all were all sleeping with each other. Then, in May 2022, Paul seemed to confirm this when she made a video announcing that she and her husband were splitting up because she violated the rules of the “soft swinging” arrangement the couple had with several others in their #MomTok friend group. Many of the women denied it, some blasted Paul, and the whole thing was rather juicy.”
In speaking with McNeal, Paul said, “I’ve had a lot of lessons learned. I had to go the hard way, and that was all by my choices that I made in life.”
