When “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” first premiered in September 2024, the Hulu reality series immediately resonated with viewers, bringing TikTok users back to the depths of MomTok in 2020, when rumors surrounding a swinging scandal involving the social group’s leader Taylor Frankie Paul spread across social media and beyond.
“We knew it was going to be a hit while we were filming,” EP Georgia Berger told TheWrap, noting she and her colleagues at Select Management were already enraptured with the women well before the series launched.
“These women are just an anomaly — I’ve never had a group of women for any of our ensemble series that delivers like the they do,” Russell Jay-Staglik, who has produced reality series including “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “Luann and Sonja: Welcome to Crappie Lake” for Jeff Jenkins Productions, told TheWrap.
“In my mind, these women are heroes,” Jay-Staglik said. “They were gently standing up against the church and asking questions, they were standing up against the patriarchy … but I was unsure how the world would perceive it – if they were going to embrace and accept it — and the world did.”
From its Friday, Sept. 6 release through Sept. 8, the series scored 409 million streaming minutes on Hulu, according to Nielsen, and grew to reach 729 million viewing minutes the following week. Given the launch’s massive success, the production team was at the ready to begin filming again — before even getting the greenlight for Season 2, which eventually came in early October.
The quick turnaround for Season 2, which launched just eight months after the first installment, was required to keep the heavily online audience engaged, according to Berger, who applauded Hulu for leaning into the show’s synergy across social media for its initial launch. “Everybody online, because they’re so used to short-form content, they have really fast attention spans [and] expect things instantly,” she said. “Online, everyone’s like, ‘it’s taking so long,’ but we all know, in traditional TV and entertainment, this moved really fast.”
With such an online fan base, Berger said the team uses social media as “cues” of storylines that “people are picking up on and what they’re most interested in” —like when Utah-born YouTuber Aspyn Ovard, whose recent divorce prompted interest for her to join the show, appears in “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” Season 2 at a Halloween party.
In addition to the series main cast — Frankie Paul, Demi Engemann, Jen Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews and Whitney Leavitt — Season 2 welcomed a new cast member into the fold in Miranda McWhorter, Frankie Paul’s former best friend, who was originally involved in the swinging scandal.
“I had met with her before, and I attempted to try to get her to participate on Season 1, but she just wasn’t having it,” Jay-Staglik said about McWhorter, who noted the most challenging part of putting together Season 2 was bringing her in. “She was one of the O.G. MomTokers involved with the swinging scandal, in bed with Taylor Frankie Paul and her husband.”
“In reality TV in general, there’s a lot of hesitations, especially when it was around an international headline, and so Miranda was initially like in MomTok, and then left,” Berger said, adding that the women were also hesitant to welcome her back into the group. “Miranda fits in … they’re all online, they’re all moms, they’re all the same age. They hang out in the same circles, they have the same goals.”
While McWhorter’s entrance opens the door to rehash parts of the swinging scandal, the show has legs beyond the scandal, with Berger saying “the swinging scandals catapults us into this world, but there’s so much more and so many other stories that we get to uncover.”
Season 2 picks right up from the drama at the end of the first installment, with Leavitt coming back to the group groveling after unfollowing the women and leaving the group chat and Frankie Paul confronting Jenna — the woman who claimed to have slept with Dakota Mortensen — on camera, while a prank involving Chippendales — where the women went in Season 1 — turns “pretty bad pretty quickly,” per Jay-Staglik.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” viewers also might have been pleasantly surprised to see the women appear on “Vanderpump Villa” Season 2, which launched in late April, but was filmed long before Season 1 of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” was launched. While “Vanderpump Villa” EPs were hesitant to bring on the women given that they don’t drink — which often fuels drama on the series — Jay-Staglik promised the women would “bring it.” And bring it, they did, with rumors of an affair between Engemann and “Vanderpump Villa” star Marciano Brunette pouring into the back half of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” Season 2.
“I love how the cast is crossing over in interesting ways, and it just fuels the beast,” Jay-Staglik said, with Berger confirming there will “definitely” be more crossovers from the Disney unscripted world in the future. “I love that synergy — I’m all for it.”
While the season also sees three of the Mormon wives pregnant, Season 2 spotlights Engemann’s IVF journey to get pregnant, which is ultimately unsuccessful, opening the door for vulnerable and relatable conversations among Engemann and the women.
“When Jeff Jenkins and I … had our very first meeting with [the Kardashians], we said, ‘Listen, do you want a good show or a great show? Because if you want a great show, you are just going to let your guard down and just let it rip — ‘The Good, the Bad, the Ugly,’” Jay-Staglik said. “Our family agreed to do that, and we’ve had that same conversation with these ladies on day one, and I had the same conversation with them at the beginning of each new iteration of each season, and every single person is on board.”
While the women’s rise to fame after Season 1’s popularity might have translated into more self-editing, Jay-Staglik said “if anything, they doubled down and shared even more.”
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” Seasons 1 and 2 are now streaming on Hulu.
