Transcription
You guys, we have got to talk about the drama that is surrounding the secret lives of Mormon wives. Mom Talk was this corner of Tik Tok that completely blew up, and these women got a reality show after Taylor Frankie Paul admitted she was part of this soft swingers group. I mean, you guys, the drama is crazy in season 2, and it's turned into a whole big thing online. The women are going on podcasts. They're talking about what's currently going on. And we are going to get into what the heck happened.
For anyone who is like, "What? Who are these people?" Let's break it all down. All the women on this show refer to themselves as being a part of Mom Talk. They're a group of Mormon moms on TikTok who all make content together, and they ended up having some explosive online drama that led to them getting a reality show on Hulu because they went so viral. The drama began when Taylor Frankie Paul, one of the group's most prominent members, revealed she and her husband had been part of a soft swinging arrangement within their friend circle, meaning they swapped partners with certain boundaries. And if you're like, "What's soft swinging?" She said that it involved kissing and like high school, college-level stuff like spin the bottle and like guess who you're kissing with the blindfold on, and that they weren't actually supposed to like do it with each other. However, Taylor admitted to breaking these boundaries by becoming emotionally involved with another partner, which led to her divorce and fractured the Mom Talk friend group.
Now, the reason being was not just because she had broken boundaries with someone else's husband, but because when all of this came out, Taylor addressed it head-on. She was like, "I was involved. This is what happened." But she didn't name any names of who else was involved. So, everyone was accusing everyone in Mom Talk of, you know, "Were you in this? Were you in this?" And people were kind of mad at Taylor because they didn't want to be associated with swinging at all. But because Taylor addressed the situation, they were all kind of getting questioned. Now, just for the record, on season 1 of the reality show, Taylor is the only one who was involved in the swinging scandal. The other moms were not involved.
Now, season 1 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives was all about the fallout from Taylor Frankie Paul's soft swinging confession. Taylor's marriage crumbled, her friendships shattered, and she tried to pick up the pieces while also starting a very messy new relationship with a guy named Dakota that brought even more chaos. But people were really drawn to her because of how open and honest she was being on the show and how she was taking accountability for her actions.
Now, on season 1, Whitney became sort of a villain because people felt like she was competing with Taylor for Queen Bee's spot of the friend group. People also criticized her for staying with her husband, who had been on Tinder, and also had an addiction to adult video websites, if you know what I mean. And by the end of the season, she announced that she was leaving Mom Talk because she didn't like the vibes, and she ended up blocking cast members on social media and left their group chat.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Affleck and her husband Zach on season 1 faced their own issues. People wanted Jen to leave Zach, feeling like he was super toxic and controlling and just a narcissist. And people wondered if they were going to split or what. So, that leads us to season 2, and it kicks off with some hot drama. And Whitney is actually laying low this season, kind of trying to stay out of the drama. Her and her husband have another baby in this season, and honestly, she's she's out of the drama. People kind of like her. And actually, we're asking to see more of her personality 'cause some people are like, "You know what? Like, I kind of think she's fun."
Now, in season 2, we also get a new cast member who is Miranda, and she was a part of the swinging scandal. She joins the cast. And people honestly thought that this was going to be drama because she was married to the guy that Taylor had the swinging scandal affair with, but this actually ended up not being the crazy drama of the season. Miranda was actually pretty chill. Her and Taylor had a sit-down conversation. Miranda confessed to being a part of the swinging scandal, confessed to what they did during the swinging scandal, and all seemed to be well.
The drama really centered around Dei, Jesse, and Jen. A significant portion of season 2's drama unfolded during a cast trip to Italy where they paid the Vanderpump Villa cast a visit. On this trip, Jen called out Dei, saying she was flirting with Marciano from Vanderpump Villa, which Dei denies ever happening. This is a huge storyline on the show where Dei accuses Jen of being a liar. In the last episode of season 2, Leila goes to Marciano to get his side of the story. And this is because she's like, "I need to go directly to the source, the other person that is involved in the situation." And Marciano admits to Ila that him and Dei were both flirting with each other.
Once the show has aired and we leave off on this information, Zami came out to talk about Marciano, and she has actually accused him of SA. She posted this on her Instagram story after the show's release and she says, "It seems pretty clear, but I guess some people are still confused. Unwanted physical touch equals period, the end. To the people that were made aware of these events and watched me cry and attempt to navigate the best way to move forward due to this individual's actions and then proceeded to use their platforms to victim shame, publicly call me a liar, and judge the way I handled it, from the bottom of my heart, shame on every last one of you. You are perpetuating the very problem as to why victims don't feel comfortable coming forward about these things. They either feel they won't be believed or will be judged and even shamed for how they've handled it. How shocking and ironic that it's almost exclusively women participating in this destructive behavior. I've never been more disappointed. Lastly, to those of you who have believed me and supported me both privately and publicly, thank you. I love you."
Now, on the Vile Files, Dei says she told the girls on the cast about what happened and was upset that she was being painted in this way. Now, I will say, post-season 2 coming out, something that has happened is Jen is standing by what she had to say about Dei and what happened with Marciano at Vanderpump Villa. Dei pushed boundaries in Vanderpump Villa. Boundaries in her marriage. Yes. And I called her out for it, and she was very upset in Italy. She was like, "How dare you tell me what my own boundaries are in my marriage? I can do what I want." I just kind of like told her like, "If you want to flirt with this guy or whatever, like you can go do that. Like that's your boundary in your marriage, like whatever. But like, I'm making it very clear that I don't want to be associated with that. And I was worried at that point, like, are they going to edit it in a way that we're all flirting with these guys? I want to make it very clear that like, I'm just here to have a fun girls' trip and I'm not like trying to like, you know."
So at that moment, were you when you brought that up to Dei, were you trying to be like a good friend and hold her accountable and be like, "Hey, I don't know where your head is right now, but like, this is what you're doing and maybe you should stop?" And she didn't respond well. I think at that point she was just like, maybe she had realized. But later, after the trip, she ended up having a conversation with Brett and she was balling on the phone. "I went too far. I should have gone to bed at 8 p.m. when you went to bed, Jen. Like, I may have pushed this too far. Will you guys please not tell anyone?"
Marciano has since come out to defend his name. He was responding to a comment made by Dei's husband, Brett, where he called Jen a liar. But Marciano said Jen told the truth and offered to show Brett the evidence on a call. "Brett, come on, bro. Come on. You're saying Jen is 100% false when Jen is 100% true. Dude, you are a smart man. You are not delusional. Like, it's admirable that you want to defend your woman like that, but you must just not know the whole truth. You heard Jen. She said she has receipts. If she has receipts, imagine what kind of receipts I have. Even if there weren't any receipts, she was at Vanderpump Villa. I was at Vanderpump Villa. Everyone knows what went down. It's all on camera. All I'm saying, man, is if you want the truth, get my phone number from Demetria and you can call or text me and we can have a talk."
In a follow-up video, Marciano shared screenshots of a conversation with Dei after Vanderpump Villa. And he's basically saying, you know, "Why is she saying all of this about me when after Vanderpump Villa, after she was there, she proceeded to follow me and message me?" Now, it's also important to note that during Vanderpump Villa, Marciano was fired along with this other girl, Hannah, for how they spoke to another cast member. So, when Marciano was talking about getting this message from Dei, he was at the airport after having just been fired, and this is when Dei replies to his story and follows him on Instagram. So, he is gone from Vanderpump Villa, which means this is after Dei has paid Vanderpump Villa a visit.
All right, here's the deal. You guys want receipts? So, I'm going to give you what I can. Unfortunately though, it's not everything. But I'm gonna at least try and show you how this all started and went down. That being said, I've just been fired off Vanderpump Villa and I was sitting at an airport bar having some vino and some za and I decided to post about it. Immediately I then get a follow and a DM from Dei. I was like, "Oh, okay. Interesting." You guys can probably see it right here that I was just as shocked. I'm like, "Oh, okay." Made a light-hearted joke about it. And from there, she tells me to call her and I said on IG and she decides no. Gives me her phone number. Um, which led to multiple hour conversation after that. And you're probably like, "Wow, what? That's interesting." But yeah, so what I'm trying to say is that Dei has made some crazy allegations about me. Crazy. But if that were the case, why are you following me? Why are you DMing me? Why are you giving me your phone number and proceed to have multiple hours of conversation and have a continued relationship after that? Yeah, doesn't make sense to me whatsoever.
He also had posted in response to the essay allegations, saying, "I really do wish I could speak more on everything, but like I said, the whole truth will come out soon. I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not condone SA in any way, shape, or form. It's a serious matter that should never be taken lightly. But at the same time, I do not support or excuse anyone who falsely claims SA, as that harms real victims and undermines the gravity of the issues."
Now, this isn't even the only situation going on surrounding the show. Because in the last episode of Mormon Wives, when Ila goes to Marciano and asks him about Dei, he revealed that while yes, he flirted with Dei, he also revealed that the real tea is that he kissed and slept with Jesse, and her husband Jordan doesn't know the full extent of the alleged affair. The tea was crazy, especially 'cause in episode 6, the Montto girls asked Jesse about a rumor that she kissed Marciano at a bar in Hollywood, and she denied it. But obviously now Marciano was saying she cheated on her husband with him, and in current interviews, she hasn't been wearing her wedding ring and has been saying that her and her husband are like working their things out.
"You have not been wearing your wedding ring. Is there anything that you can share about your marriage?" "I will say that reality TV is hard on any relationship, whether it's a friendship or a marriage, and we've been through a lot, and now it's going to be public, and we're working through things, and we're trying our best, but things are a little tricky right now, and you know, I'm excited to hopefully someday share more about that, but right now, it's a little bit, it's just real life, and it's hard."
Now, this wasn't even all the drama this season, but it's certainly been the juiciest, that's for sure. Some of the other things that were called out were Taylor exposing Dei for having warned her not to go to Jesse's salon to get her hair done, 'cause she's like, "I didn't like my hair after going, so you shouldn't go to that salon." Which everyone criticized her for because Demi is supposed to be best friends with Jesse. And obviously, it's hurtful to tell somebody, "Don't go to my best friend's business." Though Jesse has been criticized for how she lets everyone's extensions hang out, and people are like, "Well, she's not really good at hair." But they didn't love that Dei was, you know, kind of like saying this about what is supposed to be her best friend.
Speaking of Taylor, though, the only reason she really threw Demi under the bus like that was because Dei had been calling her out and questioning Taylor as the leader of Mom Talk, wanting them to vote her out, which people have been taking as Dei being jealous of Taylor and some of the opportunities that she gets as this face of Mom Talk. But she is kind of clocked and reminded that they wouldn't be here on this show if it weren't for Taylor, 'cause the swinging scandal did bring them a lot of attention and got them this reality show.
Now, in other Taylor news, her family was also criticized a lot for how they treated her this season, especially after a family dinner where Taylor's parents and her brother confront her about her relationship with her baby daddy Dakota, trying to get her to get back with him. This comes despite the fact that Dakota admitted to infidelity. The family has criticized Taylor, though, questioning her choices. He told Taylor that he wasn't seeing anyone else when he was sleeping with someone else. And literally got caught. But yet Taylor's family is like, "Girl, what did you expect from him? Like, you gave it up so easy with him. You shouldn't have slept with him when you did." They are just blaming her. And they also want her to like get back with him, give it a full try because they have a baby together. And so her family has been hearing it from those online because they feel like they were judging her and just being so inappropriate with what they were saying, just shaming her. It was ridiculous.
Now, another shocker this season was Jen and her husband Zach not actually being related to Ben Affleck. I mean, there was a lot between Zach and Jen this season about whether or not they were going to stay together as a married couple. But then she finds out that she's pregnant, and she's still with him to this very day. So, obviously, they didn't split up. But something crazy that was revealed was that Ben Affleck is not related to them at all, which is something that they really led with last season. So that was just crazy.
But when it comes to these two, though, when they were on the Vile Files together, aside from her calling out Dei, people have also been talking about Zach bringing something up in that conversation, and it was that he said when they got pregnant with their second baby, she took out her IUD without telling him. And though they're all laughing about it, people at home don't find this to be funny. "She tricked, I got tricked into, she took out her IUD without telling me." But um, some wondered if he said this because there's people accusing him of getting Jen pregnant a third time to trap her into staying with him and make her look bad with how they got pregnant with the second baby. I don't know what the heck this was about, but people are not happy after hearing this. And there's been a lot of conversations online about this.
At the end of the day, though, when it comes to season 2 of Mom Talk, the ending left with Demi on the outs with most of Mom Talk, and people feeling like she's jealous of Taylor and wants to be the queen bee of Mom Talk. And now all this drama is playing out online with Merciano. And I'm sure the cameras are rolling, capturing it all. And the producers are so happy that they decided to do a show with these people because there is so much being said. But the season left off with "to be continued." So there's no guessing on a season 3 happening. Like, it's already ready to go, and fans can't seem to get enough of the mess from these mommies.
I certainly want to know what you guys think about all that is going down with this show, how things are playing out online. Let me know if you guys are watching this show or finished it already, and or paying attention to what's being said online right now. Let me know all of your thoughts. I love you guys so much, and I will talk to you in the next video. Bye guys. [Music] Yeah. [Music]