Season 2 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives brought up a rumor about Bret Engemann allegedly cheating on wife Demi Engemann — but does every member of MomTok believe it?
When the hit series returned on Thursday, May 15, the affair speculation initially was directed at Demi, who filmed two episodes of Vanderpump Villa prior to returning for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. The brief trip to Italy resulted in Marciano Brunette hinting at a connection with Demi, which she denied.
“Nothing happened with Marciano. At the expense of sounding rude, there wasn’t even a remote attraction to him. It sucks that women can’t be kind and friendly and even playful with men in this world without it being taken as, like, you’re open. I had a rock on my finger the entire time I was there,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in May. “I brought up my marriage multiple times and they were told that we were married women — so it sucks that we couldn’t just go and have a good time and that he couldn’t respect that.”
Marciano, for his part, made an appearance at the end of the season on Mormon Wives to reveal it was actually the rumors about him and Jessi Ngatikaura that allegedly had validity. (In footage filmed after Marciano’s appearance, Jessi and her husband, Jordan Ngatikaura, accused Demi of contributing to the misinformation about the affair, which they denied.)
In between the Marciano of it all, Mayci Neeley revealed to her Mormon Wives costars that she received a blind item claiming Demi’s husband, Bret, was the unfaithful one. He allegedly slept with someone when Demi was out of town, which got addressed on the show.
“The truth always reveals itself. Until there is proof, I don’t give it any credit or any weight. I don’t understand why something that is not true would bother you so deeply,” Demi told Bret, to which he replied, “I need to worry less about optics.”
A hot-mic moment, however, teased more tension between Demi and Bret.
“Are we on the same page here? You have to know deep in your core that I would never do that to you,” Bret said after cameras stopped rolling but their mics remained on. “It bothers me. I want to find out who it was. I want to know who said it because I want to go after them. It pisses me off. You know I didn’t do that.”
Demi questioned Bret’s “overexplaining,” saying, “I don’t know what it is with you. Why do we keep talking about it? The way you are reacting is a little bit confusing. If I am guilty, this is how I am acting.”
Keep scrolling to see what Demi’s costars said about the rumor — and whether it is true:
Jen Affleck
“There is nothing I was lying about with Demi’s marriage — not a single thing,” Jen told Us before confirming that Demi allegedly sent her a cease and desist letter off screen. “That very much did exist. There is definitely a lot of threats coming my way. I do think that there is such a story line or a push from her to call me a liar. So then when I did speak my truth that everyone would think I’m crazy.”
Jen speculated that Demi was worried about the information she had.
“She knew that I wasn’t loyal to her. I was never loyal to her. She’s known to be very good at manipulating and getting people to be on her side,” she said. “I was never going to be that person for her. But she was four steps ahead of me and she wanted to make it seem like I was crazy.”
In a separate interview, Demi denied all of Jen’s claims.
“I’ve never served one person in my life a cease and desist. It was a conversation that I had had because she was spreading lies about me and my marriage. She admitted to me later on that the reason she was planning on lying about my marriage and talking about it was to take the heat off of her own marriage [to Zac Affleck],” Demi told Us. “I don’t have anything to hide. That’s why they’re twisting it in that way to try to make it seem like maybe I’m hiding something. I’m hiding nothing.”
Mikayla Matthews
“I don’t know how I felt about that rumor. They’re never apart from each other,” Mikayla explained to Us. “So for me it was like, it didn’t make sense. But I think it’s hard. In this group at this point, nothing shocks me because things just keep coming out and I’m like, ‘What’s another scandal at this point?'”
“Bret is so obsessed with Demi in every way that she could commit murder and he’d be like, ‘She didn’t do it.’ So no, I don’t think that he would ever do that to her,” Layla told Us before weighing in on what happened with Demi and Marciano. “We can give him all of the facts of what happened in the Villa and at that point it’s his choice and his decision how he wants to react to it.”
