The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Mayci Neeley and Layla Taylor are ready to get back to work!
On Wednesday, March 25, the Hulu reality stars hinted that production on season 5 could soon resume after filming was halted amid allegations of a domestic violence incident involving Taylor Frankie Paul.
Mayci, 31, and Layla, 25, both reshared a Deadline news article about costar Jessi Draper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast interview via their Instagram Stories on Wednesday. Deadline’s piece focused on Jessi, 33, discussing the season 5 production pause and her hopes to resume filming.
“Right now, I think we’re all trying to survive, so we’re like, ‘Let’s not worry about cameras, let’s just get through this storm,’” Jessi told podcast host Alex Cooper regarding the Taylor situation.
“But I think we are all excited to pick back up and continue to tell these stories,” she added, noting that news of her divorce from Jordan Ngautikaura broke while cameras remain down.
Mayci reshared the Deadline article writing, “We’re ready,” alongside a video camera emoji.
“It’s time to take back Barbieland,” she added, referring to the hit 2023 Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie — and possibly throwing a little shade at DadTok. (Some viewers have criticized the recently released season 4 for its expanded focus on the cast’s husbands.)
Layla, meanwhile, reshared the same article to her Instagram Stories and wrote, “Let’s do this girls!!!” She added, “Love our team so much and so grateful,” tagging production company Jeff Jenkins Productions and Hulu.
Us Weekly has reached out to Hulu for comment.
Reports surfaced earlier this month that season 5 of the Emmy-nominated reality show paused production following an alleged domestic dispute between Taylor, 31, and her ex, Dakota Mortensen.
Utah’s Draper City Police Department later confirmed to Us that it had an open “domestic assault investigation” involving Taylor and Dakota, stemming from an alleged incident in February. Authorities told Us that allegations were made by both parties.
Jessi elaborated on the decision to pause production during her “Call Her Daddy” interview on Wednesday. She said that she and her fellow cast members decided to halt filming amid the allegations involving Taylor. (The Mormon Wives cast also includes Miranda Hope McWhorter, Mikayla Matthews, Whitney Leavitt and Jen Affleck.)
“Me and the girls, we did decide to stop filming when we found this out because we were starting to hear things a little bit before it leaked,” Jessi said. “We just didn’t want to be filming and say the wrong thing on camera, not knowing the full story yet. We didn’t want to have to process all this information for the first time and then also be speaking about it. We just thought, for everyone’s mental health, let’s take a beat and let’s not film right now.”
“We went to production and the network, and they were all so supportive, and they were like, ‘We totally get it. You guys come first,’” Jessi added. “They handled it so well. Because of that, we all felt comfortable being like, ‘You know what? This is our real lives and if we want this show to continue to be successful, we have to handle this the right way.’”
Days after news of the production pause broke, TMZ published footage of a 2023 domestic violence incident involving Taylor and Dakota, who share 2-year-old son Ever. The video appeared to show the MomTok influencer throwing barstools at her then-boyfriend in the presence of her young daughter. (Taylor shares daughter Indy, 8, and son Ocean, 5, with ex-husband Tate Paul.)
ABC pulled the latest season of The Bachelorette, starring Taylor, in the wake of the video.
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