Key Takeaways
- Taylor Frankie Paul says she “100%” wants ABC to release her completed Bachelorette season and hasn’t ruled out trying the show again.
- ABC shelved the season three days before its March premiere after a 2023 video showed Paul throwing barstools at ex Dakota Mortensen while her daughter cried nearby.
- Paul says therapy has helped her since filming, while ABC has left the door open to an eventual release and a fan petition has topped 25,000 verified signatures.
Seven months after ABC shelved her season of The Bachelorette, Taylor Frankie Paul still wants it on the air.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star was stopped at LAX on Monday, Oct. 26, and asked whether she’d like to see the episodes she filmed finally released. “Yes, absolutely, 100%,” she said in video obtained by TMZ, pointing to the work her contestants and the production crew put in. Asked whether she’d do a second season if ABC won’t budge, she didn’t rule it out. “Well, they better release it,” she said, “and yes, I’ve teased about it.”
Paul, 32, also admitted she wasn’t in the best place emotionally when the season was filmed and said therapy has helped her make progress since. She told the outlet she’s “single and mingling” and that her decision to leave Mormon Wives last month was impulsive.
The season has been in limbo since March. Three days before its March 22 premiere, TMZ published a 2023 video of Paul throwing barstools at her ex Dakota Mortensen while her young daughter cried nearby.
Hours later, Disney Entertainment Television pulled the plug. “In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” a spokesperson said in a statement reported by Rolling Stone.
ABC hasn't ruled out releasing the season eventually, though. “It’s still day-to-day, so we’ll see,” Disney’s reality chief Rob Mills said at Deadline’s Reality TV Summit in May, per Deadline, adding that the network’s priority was making sure Paul was OK.
Fans haven't given up on seeing the season, either. A Change.org petition calling for the completed season's release has collected more than 25,000 verified signatures.
Whether or not the season airs, its ending has already played out offscreen. Paul revealed on Mormon Wives that suitor Doug Mason proposed in the finale and she accepted, before she reconnected with Mortensen after filming. Mason said in a Sept. 28 Instagram Story that he'd “officially moved on” from his Bachelorette experience, without mentioning Paul by name.
Former Bachelor host Chris Harrison has weighed in on the fate of Paul's season, too. Asked in July whether ABC should release it, he kept his answer short. “Not my monkey, not my circus,” he told Us Weekly. The 55-year-old reality TV veteran had more to say about his own upcoming dating show, explaining that the drama surrounding the franchise had only made him more excited to launch it.
That show, Chris Harrison’s The Vow, premieres Nov. 11 on Fox Nation, which plans to advertise the series on local ABC stations in roughly a dozen markets, according to Variety.
The marketing push comes despite a cease-and-desist letter from Bachelor producer Warner Bros. Television over the show's use of familiar imagery from the franchise.
ABC plans to bring The Bachelor back in 2027.
