Yet Another Entry in the 'Men Don’t Face Consequences' Column

Two weeks after news broke that filming of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives would be halted amid a domestic violence investigation involving Taylor Frankie Paul and Dakota Mortenston, it’s been announced that Mortenston will star in a new reality show. Apparently, an ongoing domestic violence investigation is no longer a deterrent for the Reality TV Gods—at least not for men. So much for consequences.

The new show, the Unwell Winter Games, created by Alex Cooper of the Call Her Daddy empire, will be a Survivor-style competition where “polarizing figures from pop culture” compete in a variety of “mental and physical challenges.” Other contestants include Huda Mustafa from Love Island, Demi Engemann, another Mormon Wife from SLOMW, and ex-con Anna Delvey. However, as evidenced by the recent fallout triggered by opening the Mormon Wife wormhole, Frankie Paul and Mortensen are very much still involved in an active domestic violence investigation—in which allegations were made in both directions. So, why is Mortensen going to be on my TV, where Frankie Paul was removed?

Jezebel previously noted that the timing of Paul’s 2023 video “surfacing” was suspicious, given that the incident occurred three years prior, the charges were dropped, and Paul has openly discussed the incident on SLOMW and Call Her Daddy. The video was leaked days before the premiere of Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette—resulting in ABC pulling the plug on the entire season. While the video is incriminating for Frankie Paul (again, the charges were later dropped), it does not clear Mortenson of wrongdoing. 

Since the news first broke, videos of therapists and domestic violence experts explaining DARVO (Defend-Attack-Reverse Victim and Offender), a manipulation tactic exhibited by abusers, have been trending on TikTok and Instagram. Today further reported that Google searches for DARVO increased tenfold. Coined by Dr. Jennifer Freyd in 1997, the term describes a cycle of abuse in which the abuser positions themselves as the victim, sometimes prompting retaliation—a pattern some experts say is evident in the leaked video involving Mortensen.

“After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation, Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm,” Paul’s representative said in a statement after the footage was first published by TMZ.

This prompted a response from Mortenson, who said, “As anyone who has seen the video will understand, this is a deeply upsetting situation. I am, unfortunately, used to these baseless claims about me and our relationship, which I categorically deny. I am focusing on our son and his safety, and hope that Taylor will do the same.” I’m not pretending to know the intricacies of Mortensen/Paul’s patterns of abuse, but based on what’s publicly known, these people shouldn’t be on TV.

When you think about it, SLOMW and the Unwell Winter Games are at their core a similar conceit. Let’s put a bunch of unhinged people in a room with cameras and let the drama unfold. After all, that’s reality TV. But my question is: will the Unwell Games also be pulled from the air days before its release, or do consequences only apply to women?

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