A little over a month after Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette was canceled due to domestic violence allegations, Disney executive Rob Mill spoke out about the situation.
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During a recent interview with Variety, Mills, who is the executive vice president of unscripted for Walt Disney TV, discussed The Bachelorette and its future.
“Everything with that is one day at a time,” he said, regarding the show’s status. “There’s really nothing new to report right now.”
Mills then shared what led to the cancellation.
“I had met with Taylor,” he said. “She had said, ‘Look, I’m raising three kids with different fathers; one, I have a phenomenal co-parenting relationship with. The other one is a challenge, but I’m really looking for a partner and somebody who can help me.’ Her motives were really very sincere.”
The Disney exec further pointed out, “Walking into that, that was a really exciting story to tell through the lens of The Bachelorette. Obviously, with everything that happened and everything everyone’s going through, that’s the hard part. Everything that Taylor’s had to go through has been really hard. The season itself is really, really fantastic. It was a great journey for her.”
The Bachelorette season was shelved indefinitely after TMZ released a video of Paul’s 2023 physical altercation with her ex, Dakota Mortensen. She addressed the incident throughout the first season of Hulu’s Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
Mills Also Spoke About ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’
Meanwhile, Mills gave somewhat of an update about Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
“There’s not much to say, other than we are clear to go back into production. That does not mean we’re filming tomorrow,” he explained. “It just means production is resuming, and we’re trying to see what that looks like. Regarding Taylor, we’re really making sure that — as a human being, on a personal level — she’s being taken care of first and foremost.”
Mills also said what shooting looks like would be decided at a later time. “Everything is still kind of day to day — this was just an announcement that we are just going back into production. That’s a process. Because we’ve been down for so long, we have to figure out what this season is even going to look like. What are the storylines?”
Mill said the cast was “probably” about halfway through the show’s fifth season when production was paused. He also stated that the show’s fate did not depend on whether or not Paul would receive additional domestic violence charges following her recent altercation with Mortensen.
“It was just simply making sure that we were really being careful and thoughtful and working with the entire cast, as well as producers,” he noted. “And making sure everybody felt this was the right decision all around.”
Regarding Mortensen’s future involvement with the show, Mills added, “I don’t think we’ve decided anything. Dakota is somebody that we’ve worked with as part of the cast. This is a family between Taylor and Dakota, and they have a child together. That’s really our first priority.”