While a newly surfaced video of a 2023 domestic violence incident between Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex Dakota Mortensen prompted ABC to pull Paul’s season of “The Bachelorette” on Thursday, cast members from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” raised concerns to Disney executives regarding Paul’s behavior earlier this month.
Though the video from the 2023 incident was the last straw for Season 22 of “The Bachelorette,” it was another domestic violence incident between Paul and Mortensen in late February that kickstarted concerns, both from Disney and the cast.
Following the new incident, of which a spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department said “allegations have been made in both directions,” production brought on a third party law firm to investigate the situation, and Rob Mills, Walt Disney Television’s EVP of unscripted and alternative entertainment, was made aware of the situation, per an individual with knowledge of the situation.
A meeting between the entire cast of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” — including the women and their husbands — and three key Disney executives, including Mills, was called on March 7, just over a week before reports that production had paused amid a new domestic violence dispute between Paul and Mortensen.
The Zoom, which lasted approximately 30 minutes, was related to the pause in production and was intended as a wellness check of sorts for the cast amid the investigation.
“It’s a dangerous situation, it’s a sad situation, and we don’t know how to navigate it, because Taylor is our friend,” the cast member said, per an audio recording of the Zoom obtained by NBC News.
The conversation shifted into the cast members sharing their accounts of Paul’s alleged actions, which have remained under wraps during the current investigation. With the investigation ongoing, Mills deflected when the cast brought up the allegations, saying “I don’t know a lot, nor do I want to know too much.”
The call is in line with reports that it was the cast of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” that ushered the decision to pause production on Season 5, which cast member Mikayla Matthews confirmed in a Thursday Instagram story.
“It was a decision that all us girls came up with and agreed on,” Matthews wrote in response to a fan asking about the production pause. “We didn’t feel comfortable filming with everything that was happening.”
Things moved relatively fast after that March 7 call, with reports that production had paused amid the new domestic violence incident circulating by March 16. Once a video of Paul from the original domestic violence incident in 2023 was leaked on Thursday, Disney was swift in deciding to pull the season just hours later.
