Earlier in 2025, ABC announced that The Bachelorette wouldn’t air a new season in 2025. However, this wasn’t news that the series was canceled, and it looks like it was a plan to get a bigger-name star to head the franchise.
The franchise has moved away from taking one of the Bachelor hopefuls from the Bachelor Nation to lead a season of the female spinoff. Instead, The Bachelorette will have a crossover of sorts with The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Yes, Taylor Frankie Paul is on a journey to find love.
Taylor Frankie Paul is the next Bachelorette
The huge announcement was made on the Call Her Daddy podcast, where Paul came on as a guest and was immediately asked about her big news. Alex Cooper, who hosts the podcast, had previously teased that the announcement was coming, cutting into a cake that said “Season 30” with some blue icing. She then changed it to pink frosting with a “change of plans” comment and a rose emoji.
We all knew what it meant, right?
And just like that, the #MomTok mom of three is the newest lead of the franchise. This is a huge step away from what we’re used to, and not just because it’s not someone from the Bachelor Nation already. This is the first time a reality show star from another show has joined the series.
Taylor Frankie Paul wasn’t sure about the idea at first
ABC came to Paul with the idea, and she admitted on the podcast that she wasn’t sure about it. She has three children with two different men, and that was sure to complicate things. While others from The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives are going on the likes of Dancing with the Stars, they have their husbands to support with the family part of things.
"How do I make this work? I'm a co-parent. I have two baby daddies, not one, so I'm dealing with two different people, my children. My home base is here. Can I travel that long? Can I be gone that long?"
Paul doesn’t have that as easily. She had to hope that both the men in her children’s lives would be able to step up. At the same time, she’s still part of the cast of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which is just another thing to juggle.
In the end, she realized that if she really wanted to do it, she would just have to figure out how to make it work. That’s what’s happened, although she admits that she’s not sure about how the rest of her Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast will deal with this big announcement or as the show airs.
"Can I make it work realistically no matter how much I want this? And I was like, I can, if you want to you can and it comes down to that so I was just like, I will make it work ... I can ask for help more."
One thing that she does hope is that the series is moved to a slightly different point on the ABC schedule. The show had moved to the summer months after the pandemic (although it used to be part of the spring cycle), and that leads to lower linear ratings. Paul hopes that it can slot into a better point of the schedule, and that is possible considering we’re now not waiting for who could be the next Bachelorette from the Bachelor cycle.
The Bachelorette will likely return in the 2026–2027 TV season on ABC.