America’s ABC network has axed the coming season of The Bachelorette, starring Taylor Frankie Paul, after video emerged showing her allegedly throwing a stool at her former partner in 2023.
The unprecedented cancellation of the already-filmed 22nd season of the long-running reality television show, early on Friday morning (AEST), came three days before it was to premiere on Monday (AEST).
The leaked video published by US website TMZ shows Paul allegedly striking her former partner, Dakota Mortensen, before throwing the breakfast bar stool at him in front of her daughter, who can be heard crying in the background. According to TMZ, police alleged the five-year-old girl was hit in the fracas and later had a “goose egg on her head”.
A statement from Disney Entertainment Television, which owns the reality series, appeared to reference a 2023 video of an altercation between Paul and Mortensen published by TMZ on Thursday.
“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” the statement said.
Paul was arrested in 2023 and charged with aggravated assault and other offences, including domestic violence in the presence of a child, a saga chronicled in the reality series in which she also stars, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which also sits under the Disney umbrella.
The 31-year-old pleaded guilty the following August to a misdemeanour charge of aggravated assault, and the other charges were dismissed.
A police spokesperson in Draper City, Utah, told People magazine that there was an open domestic violence investigation of Paul and her ex-boyfriend, Mortensen, and that allegations have been made in both directions. Mortensen is the father of one of Paul’s three children.
In a statement to People on Thursday, a spokesperson for Paul said: “It’s sad to see the latest instalment of his never-ending, desperate, attention-seeking, destructive campaign to harm Taylor without any regard for the consequences for their child.
“Releasing an old video, which conveniently omits context, on their son’s birthday is a reprehensible attempt to distract from his own behaviour. Thankfully, the public has seen this act before and knows who he is, and sadly, many will recognise this pattern of manipulation, both in his actions on the show, and from their own experiences.”
Paul was also slated to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday (AEST). However, that appearance was also cancelled, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paul was promoting The Bachelorette as recently as Thursday (AEST) on ABC’s Good Morning America and on the red carpet before the Oscars telecast.
She became known as an influencer in the #MomTok community, a group of women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sharing their lives on TikTok. In a statement confirming her Bachelorette casting in October, ABC credited Paul with “igniting ‘MomTok’ and going viral for pulling back the curtain on Salt Lake’s soft-swinging scene”.
In 2022, Paul announced that she had “stepped out” of the terms of an open relationship she and her husband were in and they were getting divorced.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives premiered in 2024. Season 4 of the show was released last week, and filming of season 5 had already paused over the investigation.
“It was a decision that all of us girls came up with,” Paul’s co-star Mikayla Matthews said on Wednesday on Instagram in response to a fan question about the production freeze. “We didn’t feel comfortable filming with everything that was happening.”
Paul posted on Instagram in December that filming had wrapped on The Bachelorette, which is hosted by Jesse Palmer.
