It's Hard for Me to Disappoint People

Ahead of her new memoir, Told You So, the reality star opens up to Us about turning her trauma into inspiration for others — and herself

- by YANA GREBENYUK

Across two seasons of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, viewers have witnessed the women of MomTok navigate some pretty wild (and wildly intimate) moments.

But fans are just starting to scratch the surface when it comes to Mayci Neeley, the show’s resident level head.

When the Hulu series, also starring newly minted Bachelorette Taylor Frankie Paul and Dancing With the Stars’ Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt, launched in late 2024, “my story line got cut,” Neeley tells Us. It wasn’t until its sophomore season that part of her backstory found its way on screen: When she was pregnant with her first child at 19, the baby's father, her boyfriend Arik Mack, died in a car accident. In a pivotal scene, her close friend and costar Mikayla Matthews visits the crash site with her, and it’s the first time we see the stoic Neeley break down.

What fans may not know is that Neeley, happily married to husband Jacob since 2018, also endured a previous abusive relationship that involved a sexual assault. To share that story and others, she took matters into her own hands, putting it down on paper for her memoir, Told You So, out Oct. 7. “The process of “writing was tricky,” says Neeley, who’s also the CEO and cofounder of BabyMama, a natal nutrition company. “When I'd write about the abuse, I was really angry and irritated. Then, when I'd write about losing my son’s father, I felt grief and sadness.”