One fateful evening, I climbed the stairs of my Terrace Apartment into the kitchen to get some water, and I ended up staying for 45 minutes. I posted up like a dad in front of the TV as the voice of Taylor Frankie Paul of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” lured me deeper and deeper into a trance. This was my introduction to the show, and I have now seen all 29 released episodes.
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” first aired in 2024 and follows a group of women who first gained popularity via their TikTok group, known as MomTok. While many of the women are no longer a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they were all Mormon at one point in their lives. Whether they were raised in the Church, converted at 16 with the wish to find stability as Layla Taylor did, or converted for a current partner, all the women can speak to the traditional Mormon values they disagree or agree with. When I first watched the show, I expected an updated version of the 2010s reality TV show “Sister Wives”; I could not have been more wrong.
The show is full of sex-positive talk, occasional alcohol and coffee consumption, ketamine therapy and revealing clothing: all things that the traditional Mormon frowns upon. One of the more recent episodes even featured a MomTok-hosted Pride ally event and took a stance against Utah legislation HB 257 and HB 77. These bills ban the display of Pride and transgender flags on government property and require individuals to use bathrooms, locker-rooms and changing facilities which correspond to their sex assigned at birth in public schools and government-owned buildings.
I possessed an aversion to reality TV before “Mormon Wives.” I could not find interest in watching celebrities, following heavily edited narratives or an atmosphere that pits women against each other while. Initially, I had the same reaction to the first minutes of “Mormon Wives” that I caught glimpses of in the kitchen. So what about this show made reality TV so captivating to me all of the sudden?
In all honesty, it took the whole of the first season for me to feel for the show. I didn’t feel connected to the women, couldn’t look past their pettiness hiding their raw insecurity, and I felt like watching was a waste of time. My influence for watching in the beginning was a way to spend time with my housemates—I wanted in on their routine gathering in front of the TV each night—but it soon became me who was asking “‘Mormon Wives’ tonight?” I have given a lot of thought as to why I enjoy this particular show so much, and I think I can attribute it to the episode where Mayci Neeley of the show opens up about the experiences that influenced her memoir Told You So. For context the memoir covers her experience losing the father of her baby while pregnant at 19, an abusive relationship, and her growth between college and young adulthood. With this episode it finally clicked that this show really was about sisterhood. The women often ironically refer to the sisterhood found in the show, and in turn mock Mormonism, but there really is no other word to refer to the support the women offer each other. While at times it does feel a bit trauma-dumpy the experiences brought to the screen are, and unfortunately at some times, very relatable.
The conclusion I reached from my deep dive into why I enjoy this show is that reality TV actually is awesome. While there are definitely still aspects of the show that my friends and I criticize, such as the silence on certain political issues and overall hyper consumerism portrayed, the episodes do provide a comforting voyeurism and insight to how these women interact with one another. Even if I was not thinking critically while watching, I do believe that the content alone takes a positive step forward in encouraging women to share their stories, and I hope that there are some current Mormon women out there that feel seen by the show.