After Taylor Frankie Paul missed her flight for The Bachelorette in the season 4 finale of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, there’s one question on everyone’s mind — why?
Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season 4.
“I was exhausted,” Taylor, 31, exclusively told Us Weekly in her first interview about The Bachelorette season 22 since wrapping production. “I was emotionally exhausted and I felt very drained and almost tested to my wit’s end of, like, can I do this? It was the night before, I was just like, ‘Can I do this? Am I capable?’ I feel like my battery [was] just at 10 percent.”
During season 4, which premiered on Thursday, March 12, costar Jessi Ngatikaura claimed Taylor slept with ex Dakota Mortensen the night before she was scheduled to head to the Bachelor Mansion. (Taylor and Dakota share son Ever, whom they welcomed in March 2024. She’s also mom to daughter Indy, 8, and son Ocean, 5, whom she shares with ex-husband Tate Paul.)
Jessi, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews, Layla Taylor — and even Taylor’s mom and sister — awaited her arrival at the airport. It didn’t take long for the group, however, to realize the reality TV star wasn’t coming. MomTok then headed to Taylor’s house to convince her to get on the plane despite feeling “sick.” After she initially refused, Taylor ultimately boarded the aircraft.
“It took everything in me to get up and go, because I knew it was going to be the best thing for me,” Taylor explained to Us. “Yes, the goal is to find someone, but what I do know is I want out of this toxicity that I’m in right now. So I knew that I needed to go, but it took everything in me to get there.”
Despite a FaceTime call with Dakota after she landed in which she admitted to still having “feelings” for him, Taylor told Us it didn’t take long for her to realize it was the right decision for her to pursue The Bachelorette.
“I think as soon as I got there, I’m like, ‘We’re here. We made it. I’m a little late today,’” Taylor told Us. “To be in such a spot of turmoil and to be able to get up and still try and go — I feel like the people that tried to take me down beforehand, they would’ve won if I stayed home. So it’s like, ‘You’re not winning. I don’t care if it takes everything in me.’ There are people that end up by your side that don’t want you to succeed and that, unfortunately, comes with what we do. And so I refuse. So I got up and I went and I did it, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.”
As season 4 came to a close, Dakota wondered aloud to Jessi and her husband, Jordan Ngatikaura, if Taylor could be pregnant after allegedly not having her period. Taylor told Us, however, that another pregnancy was not even remotely on her radar.
“That wasn’t even a thought in my mind,” Taylor explained.
As for where she and Dakota stand today — post-Mormon Wives season 4 and as The Bachelorette season 22 starts — Taylor told Us “that’s a good question.”
“I don’t even know,” she said. “I have to ask myself that question all the time. Where do we stand? I don’t know. Ask me tomorrow.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is streaming now. The Bachelorette season 22 premieres on ABC Sunday, March 22, at 8 p.m. ET and streams the next day on Hulu.
