When The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives dropped last year, we were expecting to roll our eyes at trad wives showing off perfect hair and perfect apple pies. But season 1 blew our minds. Yes, the MomTok women were perfectly blow-dried — a miracle considering how many sticky-fingered toddlers they have among them — but also strong, and their lives were hardly ideal. Swinging scandals, relationship fails and vicious arguments were just the start. As season 2 kicks off (Hulu, May 15), strained romances, friendship rifts, surprise pregnancies and questionable motives come into play. The ladies sat down with Us Weekly to spill the tea — and wow, there’s a lot of it!
Taylor
“I have a backbone. I don’t like to use it, but when I do, I’m going to use it!”
Where We Left Off So much drama! On top of the 2022 “soft-swinging” scandal that reverberated throughout her tight-knit friend group and beyond, the divorced Taylor Frankie Paul engaged in a seriously tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship with baby daddy Dakota Mortensen.
New Drama to Tok About In season 2, the 30-year-old mother of three tries to get past those traumatic years and repair MomTok relationships. That includes a reunion with old friend Miranda McWhorter, who was also implicated in the soft-swinging drama, causing a rift in the group.
“It was nice that she came in because it opened the gates of me being able to speak actual truth about who was involved,” Taylor tells Us. “I haven’t told before what we were up to at these parties, and it’s obviously not something I’m proud of, but it’s freeing at the same time.” We won’t divulge it all here, but for starters, she reveals on the show, “We did have sex in the shower with our husbands all together. We also had sex in the same bed at the same time.” And then there are blindfolds…
Speaking of awkward: As teased last season, she also faces Jenna, the woman who claimed to have slept with Dakota and now invites Taylor to go through her phone to find answers. “I had no regrets. I’d fixated on it for so long,” Taylor says, adding that revisiting these events has been “triggering,” but she’s getting better at handling them via therapy.
While her relationship status with Dakota seems to be locked on “It’s complicated” (watch for an explosive family barbecue where her relatives take sides), Taylor returns to the Mormon Wives universe stronger and ready to take on any frenemy who might mess with her: “I have a backbone,” she tells Us. “I don’t like to use it, but when I do, I’m going to use it.”
Miranda
“I had too much shame to admit the parts I was involved in”
Where We Left Off Miranda McWhorter — Taylor’s ex-BFF — is new to Secret Lives but familiar to MomTok devotees as an OG member.
New Drama to Tok About The mere presence of the 27-year-old on the show is a drama in itself, especially as the other Mormon Wives are suspicious she’s just after “clout” — something the whole lineup is obsessed with when anyone tries to infiltrate their inner circle. The hilarious cheeseboard she makes with MomTok spelled out in cheddar etc. doesn’t help. But Miranda fits in way more easily than anticipated, simply by being nice! “I do have a tendency to play middleman,” she tells Us. “I just want everybody to get along.”
The divorced mom of two also says she thinks that “everyone deserves to have a comeback if they’re willing to take accountability and put in the work.” Miranda knew that owning up to her role in the soft-swinging drama (and getting into the nitty-gritty!) was key to being reaccepted. “This is the first time I’ve been open about what really happened,” she says. “I still had too much guilt and shame to even admit the parts I was involved in. There is an assumption that it was way crazier than I feel like it was.”
Mikayla
“We’re trying to rebuild our friendships”
Where We Left Off In season 1, Mikayla Matthews — a mom of three with a fourth on the way — usually had her friends’ backs… when she wasn’t talking behind them.
New Drama to Tok About One of the most vocal about Whitney Leavitt’s decision to return to Secret Lives, Mikayla delivers a killer line at a Halloween fair: “I don’t know why I’m paying for these people to make my skin crawl when Whitney does it for free!” Talking to Us, Mikayla, 25, is a little more reflective about Whitney’s ongoing presence, as well as Miranda’s decision to sign on: “We’re just trying to rebuild our friendships to where we feel comfortable around each other.”
But Mikayla’s biggest and most serious talking point is around the devastating sexual abuse she endured in childhood. After four or five years, she finally told her mother. “I feel like she didn’t believe me,” Mikayla recounts, and so she chose “shoving it all down.” Her health (that chronic skin condition) suffered as a result. Adds Mikayla, “It really came to a point that all the trauma and abuse I had suffered was just stacking up inside my body.”
Layla
“I settled down way too fast”
Where We Left Off Layla Taylor was throwing herself into a new chapter after her “toxic” divorce from husband Clayton Wessel. “Ultimately, I settled down way too fast the first time before I was ready,” she tells Us.
New Drama to Tok About First things first: Layla’s new breasts and nose (plus tummy tuck, Botox, and lip and chin fillers) make their Secret Lives debut! “I just got my body redone. I want to show it off!” she exclaims in episode 2. “I feel confident in myself for the first time in a really long time.”
We meet a soccer coach she’s dating at Jessi Ngatikaura’s Halloween shindig — although Layla is coy about whether they’re still an item. The mom of two, 24, does acknowledge her romance rules have changed. “I’m dating to potentially find a future stepfather for my children, which has led me to become extremely picky and get out of relationships when I don’t see a future.”
Behind the scenes, Layla fesses up to some naughtiness: “Sometimes we’ll wrap scenes, and the second the producers leave, we’ll get food and debrief,” she tells Us. “If they found out we were talking about things off camera, they would get upset!”
Demi
“Jen has not been a good friend”
Where We Left Off With her blended family of three kids and older husband (Bret, 46), Demi Engemann, 30, seemed like more of a grown-up than some of the other Mormon Wives, often a steady source of support for her friends.
New Drama to Tok About Things are a little less stable for Demi this time around. In fact, many of her so-called friends say she’s the villain of season 2, and that’s largely down to rumors she hooked up with Vanderpump Villa’s Marciano Brunette when the two Hulu shows collab-ed. The server was liberal in his praise, saying in his confessional, “I’m not only just physically attracted to Demi, I am emotionally attracted to her.” The post-Italy he said, she said discourse caused ripples.
For her part, Demi vehemently denies anything inappropriate occurred and says she and Bret are solid. “We’re good,” she tells Us. “I communicate with him, and I’m honest to a fault. At the expense of sounding rude, there wasn’t even a remote attraction to Marciano. It sucks that women can’t be kind and friendly and even playful with men in this world without it being taken as, like, you’re open. I had a rock on my finger the entire time.”
Meanwhile, Demi’s perceived meddling in Jen and Zac Affleck’s relationship also causes a commotion — and she says it has her questioning why she even appears on the show. “I don’t know how I’m doing reality, honestly!” she tells Us. “I hate contention — it makes me sick. I think we all had our villainous moments, or [were] simply doing things out of being a human and making mistakes.” But, she adds pointedly, “Jen has not been a good friend, and I don’t care to get involved in their marriage at all.”
Whitney
“Everybody needs to calm down!”
Where We Left Off Often painted as the season’s villain, Whitney Leavitt clashed with several women. She even — shock, horror! — left the group chat. Was season 2 off the table?
New Drama to Tok About She’s back, heavily pregnant with baby No. 3 (Billy, now 6 months) and eager to have the “hard conversations” and make amends.
“The fallout after season 1 was shocking to me,” Whitney, 32, tells Us. “Emotions were heightened. It felt like I was on an island swimming back to shore to try and build this community again. It’s hard when you’re doing it alone.”
Whitney uses the B-word — bullying — to describe how she was sometimes treated, both on the show and on social media after it aired. “I thought it was very inappropriate how some of the women [jumped] on the bandwagon on social media and were harping on me,” she says. “I am grateful for the separation I made. People probably view it as running away, but I view it as very empowering.”
With Demi in the hot seat this time, Whitney’s experiences have helped her provide support. “I don’t want anyone else to feel that way. It’s so incredibly lonely,” she says. “You are needed. You are loved. You didn’t kill anyone. Everybody needs to calm down!”
Mayci
“My friendship with Whitney wasn’t serving me”
Where We Left Off Mayci Neeley was seemingly the only member of the group who stayed on good terms with and even defended Whitney, which often put her in awkward situations.
New Drama to Tok About Change is inevitable: The two are no longer close. “Over time, I realized this friendship was one-sided,” Mayci tells Us. “I wanted someone there to support me, and I don’t feel like that’s what evolved for us. It wasn’t serving me, and it wasn’t the best for me.” Her guard is also up with Miranda: “In my head, I was like, ‘You’re coming back for one thing. Now that MomTok has blown up, you want back in.’”
On another note, expect Secret Lives to examine an “emotionally draining” piece of the past. “I went somewhere I’ve been avoiding for a long time,” Mayci, 30, notes. As a teen on the heels of an abusive relationship, she met someone new, Arik Mack. After becoming pregnant, she lost him in a car crash. (His son was later adopted by her husband, Jacob; the couple added a daughter and are expecting another child.) “It was very vulnerable to put it out there,” Mayci says, “[but it] helped me get some closure.”
Jessi
“Demi is my personal villain”
Where We Left Off She joked she was “the grandma of the group,” yet Jessi Ngatikaura, 32 — who smuggled a flask into the hot tub at a party (heavens!) — got a kick out of where she landed in that informal sinners vs. saints categorization. (Three guesses.)
New Drama to Tok About Jessi and husband Jordan host the memorable Halloween Party That Goes Very Wrong, where the guest list (including Miranda’s ex, Chase) guarantees trouble. “It was my first couple of months in that neighborhood,” Jessi tells Us. “I didn’t expect the cops to get called!”
Meanwhile, she’s stunned by this season’s developments with a supposed pal. “Demi is my personal villain, which is pretty shocking,” Jessi says. “Our friendship was so public and we were really close, but you’ll see things happen where it falls apart.”
A mother of three, Jessi also believes the women can take their conflict too far. “In the moment, you’re so heated and think you’re right, but after time, you have more perspective,” she says. “Watching those things back is always embarrassing!”
Jen
“Demi wanted to make it seem like I was crazy”
Where We Left Off Jen Affleck’s marriage to Zac was very much in question.
New Drama to Tok About Jen, 25, has a rocky time rebuilding with Zac after the blowup caused by her visit to Chippendales. “It was important to share a bit of the aftermath,” she tells Us. “I wanted to show it’s just the reality of marriage sometimes.” Side note: Jen knows the cameras impact how her husband interacts with her. “It’s harder for him to be vulnerable,” she says. “He really tries to break through that in season 2.”
The Afflecks are now in therapy (“And I mean eight hours a week!”) while also expecting their third child. “There’s a lot to navigate,” she says. “Now we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after all that chaos.”
How will Jen’s surprise pregnancy (as revealed in episode 3) go down with fans? “It was shocking when we found out,” she admits. “I know a lot of people call it a Band-Aid baby, but truly, finding out was the biggest blessing.”
Meanwhile, Jen’s friendship with Demi takes a real hit due in part to the Italy rumors. “She knew I carried information no one else carried,” Jen says. “She’s known to be very good at manipulating and getting people on her side. She was four steps ahead of me; she wanted to make it seem like I was crazy.”
On a lighter note, after the hubbub in season 1, Zac denies being Ben Affleck’s second cousin! “That’s what your family told me!” she counters. The on-air debate is unresolved. “I’m still just confused,” Jen tells Us. Calling 23 and Me?!
For more on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, watch the exclusive video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly — on newsstands now.
