Behind the Scenes of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives - SAINTS, SINNERS & SWINGERS

With major drama set against the backdrop of not-as-conservativeas-we-thought Mormonism, this reality sensation is on fire. Us speaks exclusively to every single mom on the show for the real story!

- LEANNE ACIZ STANTON & ISABEL MOHAN

A shocking sex scandal involving the Mormon church, TikTok stars competing to be queen bee and a cast member allegedly distantly related to Ben Affleck: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has all the makings of a classic reality TV guilty pleasure.

It all started with #MomTok, the TikTok craze that took off in 2020 in which a gaggle of groomed, glamorous but kind-of-bored young Mormon housewives would post dances and skits to TikTok, subverting the world’s perception of supposedly strict religious communities. It all seemed sweet and innocent — until one of the #MomTok-ers, Taylor Frankie Paul, shockingly revealed in 2022 that she had indulged in “soft swinging” with other people’s partners, and that she was getting a divorce after things, predictably, went very wrong. “No one was innocent,” Taylor explained at the time. “Everyone has hooked up with, like, everyone.” (See sidebar below for another perspective.) What, you ask, is “soft swinging”? Taylor recently revealed on Nick Viall’s podcast that initially, two couples had been “making out in the same bed, [having] intercourse in the same bed next to each other, the girls kissing and the husbands touching the [others’ wives].”

And that’s where the Hulu show — the streamer’s most-watched unscripted season premiere of 2024 — picks up, with Taylor, plus fellow Mormon wives Demi Engemann, Jennifer Affleck, Jessi Ngatikaura, Layla Taylor, Mayci Neeley, Mikayla Matthews and Whitney Leavitt, baring their lives, souls and sometimes midriffs to the world.