Jessi Draper Shares Taylor Frankie Paul Update After Release of Assault Video, Bachelorette Cancellation
Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Taylor Frankie Paul, which includes a leaked video of a physical altercation, her costar reflected on the aftermath.
Jessi Draper doesn’t know if MomTok can truly survive this.
After a video of a 2023 physical altercation between Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex Dakota Mortensen surfaced, Jessi shared her thoughts on the aftermath.
“Seeing that video is so hard,” Jessi shared on the March 25 episode of Alex Cooper‘s Call Her Daddy podcast, while growing emotional. “It’s just—there’s so much pain underneath the surface for Taylor.
And I tell her this all the time, it’s not who Taylor is. She got caught in a really bad cycle and just seeing that video—yes the child being involved is awful—and everyone involved, is really hard. But Taylor is such a good person and she’s made some mistakes and so has Dakota.”
“And I’m not saying any of it is right,” she continued. “But I know Taylor as a person and it’s so easy to speculate about there people on a reality show like we’re characters, we’re not real people, but this is our real lives and I’ve seen Taylor in her darkest moments, holding her crying…and I want this to maybe be a wake up call for them.”
The February 2023 clip, recorded by Dakota and released by TMZ on March 19, showed Taylor yelling and attempting to hit her then-boyfriend while her daughter was also in the room.
Before the clip’s leak—of which ABC canceled Taylor’s upcoming season of The Bachelorette shortly after—her SLOMW costars had already hit pause on season five. In fact, filming of their reality show was halted after a separate alleged confrontation between Taylor and Dakota—who dated on and off from 2022 to 2025—a source with knowledge told E! News on March 16.
Jessi also shared an update on her costar’s current wellbeing, noting that Taylor was the one to reach out amid the cancellation.
“I actually talked to her right before I came in here and she seemed pretty positive today,” Jessi explained. “And I think she knows that this is going to be a long and scary journey and the thing about Taylor is that she always tells the truth…I think she’s going to handle this in the best way possible. And I think she’s taking a beat to figure that out.”
Unique Nicole/FilmMagic & Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagicPrior to Jessi’s CHD appearance, Taylor’s costars Layla Taylor and Miranda Hope also shared their own thoughts on the controversy surrounding Taylor.
“My personal history as a survivor makes it impossible for me to stay silent,” Layla, 25, wrote in a March 20 Instagram Story. “I stand firmly against domestic violence in any form. I keep her children in my thoughts, hoping for their safety above all else.”
And Miranda emphasized her shock as the situation came to light.
“Everything has been really tough to see,” the 27-year-old wrote in her own Instagram Story that day. “Domestic violence and abuse of any kind is something I take very seriously. As a human, and especially as a mother, I cannot support that kind of behavior.”
