As if Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortensen‘s romance hasn’t been messy enough, the new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives includes accusations that he was sexting her mother’s friend.
Hulu released season 3 on Thursday, November 13, with Taylor, 31, and Dakota’s off-and-on romance at the center of the drama. They started off as coparents to their 19-month-old son, Ever, but several hookups led to Taylor and Dakota nearly getting back together.
The reconciliation fizzled out when Taylor caught wind of rumors that Dakota, 32, shared sexual messages with her mother Liann May’s unnamed pal. The revelation shocked Taylor, who referred to the woman as a family friend who was a consistent presence in their lives over the years.
Dakota owned up to engaging with the friend via text messages and even claimed the woman sent sultry photos of herself to him. Taylor wanted to hear from the woman personally, so she called her in the ninth episode — only for the unnamed former friend to deny the accusations. She then refused to speak further once she realized she was being recorded for The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
In the season 3 finale, Taylor mentioned that Dakota refused to film more scenes for the show if the drama was brought up. He ultimately didn’t appear in the last episode of the season.
Hulu viewers are very familiar with Taylor’s attempts to make things work with Dakota after they called it quits by the time production started on the second season. The former couple were seen fighting about Dakota’s alleged infidelity and Taylor’s family shaming her for not finding a way to make it work with him for their son’s sake.
The drama continued off camera when Dakota was forced to shut down rumors that he was expecting another child with a mystery woman.
“No babies on the way,” Dakota wrote via TikTok in May. “I am not having a kid with anybody. I haven’t slept with anyone since I have dated Taylor until now. If anybody wants to try to prove that wrong, by all means be my guest.”
He continued: “I just wanted to clear the air because there’s a few girls out here that said they are even pregnant with my child. Lots of crazy stuff but anyways, no baby coming!”
Taylor also weighed in on the drama at the time, writing via TikTok, “A girl claiming to be having his baby as I’m putting myself in timeout for actually being his bm [baby mama]. I think it’s a joke, I sure hope so.”
One month later, Dakota hinted that he nearly reconciled with Taylor before a surprising revelation rocked their dynamic — again.
“I know a lot of people from a viewer point of view [don’t understand that] having everything aired out to the world is a lot different than just going to a person you care about or your family and telling them something,” he explained on an episode of “The Viall Files” in June. “Like, you want to talk about fear, that’s the scariest feeling in the world.”
Dakota noted that filming a reality TV show didn’t help their relationship.
“Then doing it with a show, you don’t have any control over it. If they’re missing something, it’s like that’s not how it was. That to me was really hard to grasp,” he recalled. “That was hard to understand. I was like, ‘I don’t want to be torched to the world for it. I just want to have a moment with you where I can talk to you. I want a safe place to talk.’ But that’s not the case.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is currently streaming on Hulu.
