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Dakota Mortensen has been edited out of the upcoming third season of Vanderpump Villa.
Amid a domestic violence investigation into a 2023 altercation between Dakota, 33, and his ex-girlfriend, Taylor Frankie Paul, 31, whose season of The Bachelorette was cancelled weeks ago, Lisa Vanderpump, 65, has confirmed that his scenes were removed from the Hulu series.
“We don’t want to shine a spotlight on something that’s been so controversial when we have so much great content,” she explained to PEOPLE on April 3. “Our show’s ready to go. Obviously, we don’t want to do anything extraordinarily significant at this stage in the game, but it’s ready to go.”
According to Lisa, stars in and executive produces Vanderpump Villa, Dakota’s removal from the show “hasn’t affected the story.”
“[He] didn’t really have a big storyline,” she noted. “[He had a] brief storyline of an interaction with somebody else, and we just scaled that back because of the controversy.”
“We’ve got so much ‘feel good factor’ and so much story content anyway,” she added. “The visuals are beautiful, the stories are complicated. There’s a lot of humor in it, there’s a lot of funny, sexy time and it’s a great show. It’s great entertainment.”
As fans may have seen, a 2023 video of Taylor throwing chairs at Dakota with their daughter nearby surfaced in March, leading not only to the cancellation of The Bachelorette but also to producers hitting pause on the fifth season of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Following the sharing of the shocking video and a slew of allegations that came after, Dakota, who shares a 2-year-old son with Taylor, released a statement to PEOPLE.
“As anyone who has seen the video will understand, this is a deeply upsetting situation. I am, unfortunately, used to these baseless claims about me and our relationship, which I categorically deny. I am focusing on our son and his safety, and hope that Taylor will do the same,” he shared.
At the end of last month, it was announced that Dakota would be featured on the cast of Alex Cooper’s Unwell Winter Games, which follows 16 “polarizing” celebrities who “compete in a series of mental and physical challenges over the course of four days.”
Vanderpump Villa season three premieres on Thursday, April 16, on Hulu.