Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 3: Contracts, Crossovers, DWTS Drama

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is back and, believe it or not, they’ve returned with even more drama than the first two installments. 

The shiny Hulu series has been on the fast track to success, debuting its first season 14 months ago and swiftly emerging as the most-watched unscripted premiere for the streamer in 2024, while season two earned 5 million global viewers in its first five days across Disney+ and Hulu.

Since then, the series earned an Emmy nomination, two women from the cast competed on Dancing With the Stars and one is the next lead of ABC’s The Bachelorette. 

Stacked up to the reality television greats, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, in format, isn’t all that different to Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. But there’s one obvious discrepancy between the two — MomTok isn’t afraid to acknowledge that they’re filming a reality TV show. 

Where the Housewives never dare to break the fourth wall, the Mormon Wives have evolved past the unspoken rules of reality TV, inviting conversations about the optics of their show. Season two pulled the curtain back on contract conflicts with Demi Engemann that later trickled into cast dynamics.

Fast forward to season three, and the premiere began with an explanation narrated by Mayci Neeley and Mikayla Matthews as to why Engemann and Whitney Leavitt left the show at the time, with the latter allegedly exiting because she wasn’t able to lock down a role in a scripted series and tickets to the Oscars in return for Mormon Wives participation. 

Engemann and Leavitt’s contrast scuffles have completely blown the lid off conversations about show stipulations, which is a topic that executive producers Jeff Jenkins and Lisa Filipelli tell The Hollywood Reporter must be addressed to better serve viewers. 

“When Lisa and I and Hulu started producing Mormon Wives, the inside baseball stories were so significant, they were really defining the relationships between the ladies. It was almost impossible not to include it,” Jenkins adds. “If we don’t include this uproar about Demi or Whitney demanding changes to her contract, the audience [is] not going to understand why these three are furious at this one. It just won’t be true.” 

Discussing show skeletons is often frowned upon in reality TV. The Bachelor franchise leads are expected to be “there for the right reasons” and never admit to aspirations of fame while the ladies of the Real Housewives refer to themselves as “a group” (hidden verbiage for “a cast”) and force inauthentic storylines of seeking friendships with one another.

Jenkins, an unscripted vet who worked on Keeping Up With the Kardashians from its beginning, acknowledges that years ago, “we would never include content that was inside baseball, like contracts, shooting schedule, length of contract, all that stuff that’s very behind the scenes.” 

In fact, he says the Mormon Wives team had “a very thorough discussion” on whether or not the show would cover these behind-the-scenes elements. But the drama of MomTok demands that these topics don’t go unnoticed — paired with the notion that the cast is composed of influencers who are talking about the content of the series online months in advance before new episodes drop. 

“The girls are posting so much about their lives online. There are so many little digs and sub comments, that you’re sort of trying to figure it out in real time,” Filipelli says. “The second screen experience is just as important as the show, because the show is not actually ever off air. It’s always happening online.” 

The EPs also believe there’s no need to maintain this faux illusion of a fourth wall for the viewers because “audiences are so sophisticated these days,” Filipelli says.

“If [what’s going on in their lives] doesn’t come out on gossip sites, one of our cast is gonna post something about it at some point. So instead of trying to be kind of half-assed about it, let’s fucking embrace it wide open and give the viewer the real deal,” Jenkins declares. “Most shows aren’t really doing that, and certainly most shows are not just embracing it, so it was exciting to embrace it. It’s a little bit of a risk.” 

Another distinctive characteristic of the Mormon Wives rollout is the swiftness in which new seasons drop. Hulu has released three seasons, as of Thursday, of the program in a little over one year. 

Jenkins clarifies that the women have been “shooting very consistently, since the kickoff of shooting season one,” and receive “a few months of break in between seasons, but not much.” Both EPs acknowledge that the filming schedule has been “such a challenge” — for the cast and crew — and they’re working on “finding a balance.”

But the intrigue in MomTok is nowhere near slowing down. While season three arrived Thursday, the cast has continued to film for future installments, including while Leavitt and Jen Affleck took their turns on Dancing With the Stars and Taylor Frankie Paul went off to film The Bachelorette (she’s currently in the middle of shooting, which she’s been sharing online). 

The ladies of MomTok were approached with the unique opportunity to potentially appear on the competitive ballroom show on Mormon Wives, with season three ultimately capturing Affleck and Leavitt’s journey to securing their placement on the season 34 cast. But if talking about contracts is considered breaking the fourth wall, Leavitt entirely bulldozed it when she admitted that she returned to film Mormon Wives merely for a shot to audition for Dancing With the Stars. 

Jenkins said the situation made him “pause” and contemplate how much was too much to let viewers in on.

“Personally, I paused, and really was thinking, Okay, if we really share this truth that Whitney is coming back just so she’s officially a cast member of Mormon Wives so she can officially be considered for Dancing With the Stars, I was like, well, this is really inside baseball. This is kind of controversial,” he explains. “But we started down this path, including the real business machinations of what happens behind the scenes. [We were] already heading down that road, so we included it.” 

Affleck and Leavitt’s Dancing With the Stars casting serves as an example of the cross-functionality their parent company Disney is willing to breach within its slate. And that strategy has worked so well that ABC further expanded upon their collaboration with Hulu’s budding talent when they named Paul the next Bachelorette. 

With so much crossover between Hulu and ABC, Filipelli asserts that these major merges across the companies owned by the same corporation aren’t “a particularly new idea,” but is an example of the network rather maximizing their sprawling “social media strategy.” 

“Something that we work really closely with our partners on, [is] just [pitching] like, ‘Hey, we know this feels like a leak. We actually think it’ll drive story,’” she adds. “It’s not necessarily a follower count that draws audience, but story that draws audience. So being mindful of that and thinking about, Does it make sense? Is it true to what is happening? How can you capitalize on that in such a way?” 

Back to Paul starring in The Bachelorette — the real question is, how did this deal come about? Did Filipelli and Jenkins pitch her to ABC? Did the network reach out to the Mormon Wives team? 

“It was Taylor’s idea,” Filipelli reveals. “It started out not serious, and then it was quick, and it was serious. And now it’s real. Yeah, that was her idea.” 

Paul’s casting indicates that the yearn for more Mormon Wives isn’t anywhere near slowing down. Only time will tell how many seasons Hulu’s hit reality series will last, but Jenkins and Filipelli assert that answer lies in the hands of their cast.

“It is going to be decided by the cast members themselves, because the only thing that will keep it going is if the cast members continue to share, and share in a very significant way,” Jenkins says of how many seasons the show will last, as Filipelli adds, “It really is however long they can handle it.” 

Though Jenkins knows firsthand that “as you become more and more famous and receive more and more feedback, it does become more and more challenging to live openly.” His experience on Keeping Up has lent itself well to Mormon Wives, and he recognizes a few qualities from two of his current cast members in one of his former stars that may serve the future of the series well.

“Back in the day, Kim [Kardashian] would share 90 percent of her life on camera. Taylor Frankie Paul shares 90 percent of her life on camera. Jessi [Draper Ngatikaura] shares 90 percent of her life on camera,” he says. “Can they continue sharing? If they can, I think this project has a long life. It’s up to them.” 

All 10 ten episodes of season three of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are now streaming on Hulu.