The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul was forced to explain “soft swinging” to Joy Behar and Chelsea Clinton on Thursday’s episode of The View.
The Mormon TikTok star, who rose to fame after being embroiled in a swingers scandal, was pressed on the issue while promoting her new Hulu show.
While discussing the series, Behar, 81, questioned Paul, 30, about the incident.
“In 2022, you created quite a scandal, Ms. Taylor, when you revealed that you and your husband were getting divorced because you had both been soft-swinging with other partners,” Behar said.
“It’s the soft part that puzzles me. What happened there? What’s the soft swing? Explain it to me.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul was forced to explain “soft swinging” to Joy Behar and Chelsea Clinton on Thursday’s episode of The View
The Mormon TikTok star, who rose to fame after being embroiled in a swingers scandal, was pressed on the issue while promoting her new Hulu show.
Paul awkwardly replied, “So, swinging is when you change partners, like swingers, right? So in our case, we opened up our relationship, we played around and we were intimate in front of each other.
“So we weren’t doing a complete change, that’s why they called it ‘soft swinging.'”
Clinton, who was a guest panelist that day, stepped in to redirect the conversation to Paul’s co-star, Mayci Neeley.
Paul’s marriage to then-husband Tate broke down in 2022 after she developed feelings and embarked on an affair with one of his fellow swingers, who was also married to one of her friends.
At the time, Paul’s star was rising as part of a group of “MomTok” influencers on TikTok. She and other glamorous Mormon moms often appeared in each other’s videos, creating dances and participating in viral trends together.
“MomTok was involved and then I guess the public thought everyone was a swinger on MomTok,” she said. Fox News‘People were dissecting.’
And speaking of the Viall ArchivesPaul said there was never a specific conversation that led to the swapping. Instead, it all started during a night of drinking when her husband and another person suggested that she and a woman “make out… it’s hot.”
“I’d done it when I was younger, it wasn’t a big deal to me… We organised another party and they said: ‘Take off your clothes and we’ll take lingerie photos together’. It got a lot more intense,” she explained.
“It’s the soft part that puzzles me. What happened there? What is the soft swing? Explain it to me,” Behar asked.
“We opened up our relationship, we played and we were intimate in front of each other,” Paul explained.
Pablo recalls that the two couples “had sexual relations in the same bed… the girls kissed each other and the husbands touched the other wives.”
At the time, it was just her, her husband and another couple, but over time it expanded to include a third couple.
Paul said her then-husband was the first person to withdraw insurance, because he was worried that one of the women would get pregnant and not know who the father was.
“My husband said maybe we should stop doing this with our best friends and maybe we could do it with strangers… I didn’t agree,” she said.
Despite the saga – and condemnation from Latter-day Saints who say there are “gross misrepresentations” of the faith – Paul insists she has every right to continue identifying as a Mormon.
“I go to church and my son will be blessed here soon. No one can really tell me that I can’t go to church because I have sinned. It’s between me and the church,” he said.
Paul revealed in a livestreamed video in 2022 that she and her then-husband, Tate, had agreed to have multiple partners as part of a “soft swinging” group with other married Mormon couples, implicating some of the women who often appeared in their videos.
Paul and her husband had an agreement that they would “not go all the way” with other partners, but she broke that agreement with one of the other husbands she had developed feelings for, which ultimately ended their marriage.
Paul’s marriage to then-husband Tate (pictured) broke down in 2022 after she developed feelings and embarked on an affair with one of his fellow swingers.
The influencer currently stars on Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Several of those women insisted they were not involved and issued public statements, while others remained silent and declined to comment.
Several of the key players from the MomTok era have since claimed they were asked to appear on the Hulu show but turned it down.
The friendship between several of the women and Paul disintegrated, and one of the women, Miranda McWhorter, said she did not want to appear on the show in an effort to avoid having to interact with Paul.
“Yes, we said we would consider it if she didn’t appear on the show, and we did. We knew we weren’t going to find out anytime soon, and we still made the decision, for our families and for ourselves, because it didn’t feel like the right fit,” she said.
At the time, it was unclear whether Paul would be able to appear on the show, as he was facing charges of aggravated assault, domestic violence in the presence of a child and child abuse.
She accepted a plea deal for aggravated assault and the other charges were dismissed with prejudice.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives premiered on Hulu on September 5.
It is currently the streaming service’s most-watched unscripted premiere of 2024, surpassing the final season of The Kardashians.
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