Premiere this week The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows a sisterhood of Mormon women struggling to recover from a sex scandal that rocked the group to its core. As they struggle to find a way forward, they also face new drama with the men in their lives and with each other, and cameras capture all the fireworks.

Paul revealed the sex scandal at the center of the show in May 2022, when she announced that her then-husband Tate Paul was divorcing her. At the time, she claimed the pair were part of a “soft swinging” community — meaning they wouldn’t have penetrative sex with other people — but that arrangement went south when she claimed she had gone too far with someone else in their community… and some of the parties involved “developed feelings.”

None of the other women in the cast of the Hulu series have been directly involved in the scandal, though Demi Engemann has said she went to parties where her husband got strange “vibes” and said they didn’t share them. Engemann also claimed Paul told them he “definitely thinks it would be cool to sleep with us” before accusing her of being “extraordinarily flirtatious” with her husband at one of the parties.

When TooFab caught up with Paul and her partner Jessi Ngatikaura ahead of the premiere, we wondered if she’d want others involved in the swinging controversy to speak out when it happens… or if they’d be a part of the show with her.

“Yes. I’m glad you asked that because you’re the first person to ask me that. Yes, absolutely,” she told TooFab. “It’s unfortunate because they come out after the show is filmed. I felt like out of respect for them, I don’t think I should use the names of the people involved. I was very respectful, I could have come out and said it in its entirety, you know?”

“But once the trailer came out, the podcasts started happening, now people are coming out and it’s just, like…” she added, before Jessi interjected, “Damage control.”

“They’re just upset,” Paul continued. “And I’m like, where was all this when you could have–? And who said I even talked about you on the show?”

In recent weeks, MomTok alums Miranda McWhorter and Camille Munday — who have been directly linked to the scandal but have denied that they are swingers — have been in the spotlight again after Munday was interviewed on a podcast. During the conversation with Weekly garbageclaims that both she and Camille were approached to appear on the Hulu show but turned it down.

“It was unsettling at all,” she said, adding that “it was never something I enjoyed” and expressing concerns for her family.

Paul then took to her TikTok and claimed that the women had actually rejected the show because they refused to be on the show with her. This led to McWhorter sharing text messages with receipts showing her concern over Paul’s assault case, ultimately rejecting the show before she learned the verdict in her case. Chase also started his own TikTok defended her ex, calling Paul’s claims “a pretty obvious attempt to get clicks and views for an upcoming show.”

Then Paul replied again: saying that the receipts only confirm her wordsadding that her intention was not to boost PR, but the extra attention “didn’t hurt us either.”

“They’re probably hurting themselves,” she told TooFab, before adding, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went out and tried to get Season 2 if we got it.”

The swingers scandal doesn’t have that much of an impact on the entire first season after the first episode. For Paul, her storyline mostly revolves around her sometimes turbulent relationship with Dakota Mortensen.

At the time of filming, Paul was pregnant with the couple’s first child, following an arrest for domestic violence in February 2023. She was initially charged with two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, one count of aggravated assault, and one count each of misdemeanor child abuse and malicious damage to property. However, she ultimately accepted a plea agreement in which she pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault; the remaining charges were dismissed.

Throughout the season, the two often clash as trust issues and self-destruction threaten to tear them apart. At points, her coworkers call the relationship “toxic,” her parents seem to have a problem with their romance, and Dakota has to apologize for “overreacting” during one of their more explosive arguments.

“I think he was going to be a good boyfriend and caring, but I think it could come off very differently and he’s nervous about how he’s going to come off because he’s a really good guy at the end of the day,” Paul told TooFab about how Mortensen is feeling ahead of the premiere.

Her guy isn’t the only other character who might not be looking their best when the show ends, as Paul said: “I can’t speak for the other guys, but I’m sure you saw some things on there that they might regret doing on TV.”

“But how many times can you watch mistakes, you know?” Jessi added. “So hopefully they can handle it and grow. But there are husbands and boyfriends who will probably cringe watching that.”

Paul herself hopes the show will help fans learn more about her than just “the headlines we hear” — though she admits she hasn’t been as present among the other women on #MomTok as she would have liked.

“I wish I could be there for more of my daughters. Because I feel like I was so distracted — obviously one, like family and my relationship — that I wasn’t present here and I couldn’t, as they say, express my opinion through #MomTok,” she shared. “And that’s what this show is about, and I just sat there and watched it all and thought, what the hell?”

“I have my own opinion and I didn’t say much there. And I think if I went back, I would do it differently,” she added.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for season 2!

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives arrives Friday on Hulu.