The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives will resume production after a pause tied to an internal investigation involving Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen. Cameras on the Hulu series had been set to stay down while production reviewed conflicting claims made by Paul and Mortensen, according to people familiar with the show’s handling of the matter.
The pause drew attention in mid-March, when reports first said filming on the forthcoming fifth season had halted. NBC News later obtained audio of a March 7 Zoom call with the Mormon Wives cast and three Disney executives, and the series remained on hold while the internal review was completed. A spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department separately said there is an open domestic assault investigation between Paul and Mortensen, adding that allegations have been made in both directions and that contact was made with the involved parties on Feb. 24 and 25.
That police statement helped explain why the production freeze lingered. The dispute between Paul and Mortensen has also spilled well beyond the set: a video of events leading up to Paul’s 2023 arrest later leaked after the alleged incident became public, and NBC News reported on March 25 that Paul was under investigation for an alleged third domestic violence incident involving Mortensen that allegedly occurred in 2024. In a separate development, ABC pulled season 22 of The Bachelorette three days before its scheduled March 22 premiere, underscoring how quickly reality TV can be forced to respond when off-screen allegations become the story.
Paul then escalated the matter on April 7, filing for and being granted a temporary restraining order against Mortensen. Her filing described a Feb. 23 event in which she said Mortensen became physically violent and slammed her head on the dashboard of his truck. Then, on April 14, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office said it would not pursue new charges against Paul after separate investigations by the Draper Police Department and West Jordan Police Department.
What happens next is clearer than it was a week ago: filming starts again, even as the underlying disputes do not disappear with the production pause. For viewers, dakota mortensen is no longer just a cast name attached to a storyline; he is part of the legal and public record surrounding a series whose future now depends on how much of that conflict the show chooses to leave on screen. That makes the resumption of production less an end to the fallout than a decision to keep moving through it.
