Bachelor Nation was shocked this week when it was announced that the franchise was not only skipping its next cycle of The Bachelor in early 2026 but that, for the first time ever, The Bachelorette was coming from outside of the show. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul will lead Season 22 of ABC’s reality dating show. Fans’ reactions were all over the place, but her ex’s Lindsay Lohan-inspired response was particularly amusing.
Fans of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (whose second season aired on the 2025 TV schedule and can be streamed with a Hulu subscription) have watched a lot of drama play out between Taylor Frankie Paul and her baby daddy/on-off boyfriend Dakota Mortensen. So how did he react to her being cast as The Bachelorette? He invoked LiLo, of course! Check out his Instagram post:
OK, I’m loving the resurfacing of Lindsay Lohan’s fake dating video from 2009, and Dakota Mortensen’s use of the Funny or Die clip to address his ex’s upcoming journey to find love would suggest he’s dealing with it pretty well — even if he is potentially referencing her 2023 domestic violence arrest.
In the video, he mouths the words of the Mean Girls star, who says:
Hi, my name is Lindsay and I’m searching for love. I’m recently single, I think, and I’m looking for someone whom I can spend the rest of my life with, or at least the rest of my probation with. A little bit about me: I’m an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur.
But just in case anyone would get the impression that he’s bitter about The Bachelorette stealing his (sometimes) girl, he made sure to clarify that his video was all in good fun, captioning the post:
It’s a joke.. everyone relax lol that being said I am happy for Tay and I hope she finds happiness no matter what ❤️🩹🫶🏽
Whether or not Taylor Frankie Paul will find happiness remains to be seen, but Bachelor Nation can rest assured that she’s going to bring the drama. Mormon Wives’ very first episode addressed the “soft-swinging” scandal that led to her divorce from Tate Paul (with whom she shares two children) and her February 2023 arrest for domestic violence after a drunken altercation with Dakota Mortensen.
The couple allegedly started dating in August 2022, but in November of that year, Taylor Frankie Paul announced she had an ectopic pregnancy, and they broke up soon after. They reunited just weeks later and ultimately welcomed son Ever in March 2024, but their relationship was plagued by cheating rumors, which played out on the Hulu reality show.
According to Taylor Frankie Paul on Call Her Daddy, where she announced her forthcoming run as The Bachelorette, she and Dakota Mortensen are over for good, and we’ll apparently have to watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 3 to see that play out.
The third season of the Utah-based reality series is set to premiere Thursday, November 13, on Hulu, ahead of Paul making her debut on The Bachelorette, which will presumably come in January 2026. I can’t help but wonder what kind of social media content she and Dakota Mortensen will continue posting in the meantime.
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