Credit: Disney/Michael Kirchoff
Taylor Frankie Paul revealed she’s the next Bachelorette, how it came to be, and where she stands with Dakota Mortensen. Historically, The Bachelorette leads start as contestants on The Bachelor, but Taylor’s only experience on TV is her hit show, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Throughout Mormon Wives, Taylor has gone back and forth with her ex, Dakota, the father of her third child. Though she openly called him out for sleeping with another woman when they first started dating, they continued to hook up even after their breakup, and many fans believed they would reconcile.
On Call Her Daddy, Taylor announced she’ll be the first Bachelorette to not come from the franchise. The host, Alex Cooper, asked Taylor how she was feeling about the news.
“It has not hit me,” Taylor responded. “It’s not gonna [feel real] until I think at the limo’s pulling up, and I’ll be meeting the people… So, nervous. How did I get here? In my head, I’m like, ‘How is this happening?'”
She was then asked how she earned the spot.
“I don’t know, like, how that worked out in my favor, but … [fans] were like, ‘You should go on The Bachelorette. Obviously, my relationship … didn’t work out, or it wasn’t working out, and people could see that,” she explained. “They’re like, ‘You should just, you know, go on The Bachelorette.’ I used to see little side comments, so I made a funny [TikTok] video, and this was actually three years prior. I made the same video, but I was like, ‘Hey, I’m single. I think I’m looking for someone … I hope someone will take me, you know, I’m on probation,’ and all these things aligned.”
She suggested that it started “mostly” as a joke.
“I literally was like, ‘Ah, let’s just say The Bachelorette, set it off,’ and then once I did, people started tagging The Bachelorette, like, ‘You should, you should, you should,’ and I don’t know if that got their attention or someone was like, ‘Yeah, maybe,’ and then it was mostly [a] joke to me, like unattainable,” she continued. “[Then] I heard there was some talking, and then it was like we had a meeting, and then I still didn’t believe it until, like, I got the invitation, ‘Will you be our Bachelorette?’ And I was just … shaking, pacing back and forth. I was like, ‘There’s no way. There’s no way.'”
But Taylor said she had hesitations at first because she’s a parent with “two baby daddies.” Taylor later decided, however, to hire her family, as well as an assistant and a nanny, to make it work. The star also confirmed that she’ll still be doing Mormon Wives.
She thinks “most” of her castmates will be happy for her, and she’s already told “almost all of them.” Everyone she told gave her a “positive” response.
As for her relationship with Dakota, Taylor said they’re done for good. “It’s over. And we’ll see that play out,” she said. “I [ended it].”
Taylor hinted that they hooked up once after Stagecoach, but that was their last time. “It’s been very confusing, if I’m being honest. And I did want to end up with him,” she said. “But it just did not work out. There were certain things that were forever closing for me. And again, everyone will see that. And I, you know, I can’t speak on that yet, but it closed the book for me, but it was really hard to let go. That was a hard pill to swallow that I can’t be with you now.”
Taylor said she’s learned not to ignore her intuition. Regarding the Bachelor, Taylor said the youngest age she would consider dating is 27, and the oldest would be 43. He would have to be willing to move to Utah, but he doesn’t need to be Mormon.
According to Taylor, she’ll only get engaged at the end of the season “if it’s the right person.”