The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is filled with a lot of the same elements that make other reality shows popular, except for one major difference. For the most part, the women on the show don’t drink alcohol.
“I think that’s what makes the show even crazier,” Taylor Frankie Paul told Newsweek. “We’re kind of crazy, but we’re sober, so it makes it that much crazier if you think about it.”
Reality television shows often put groups of people, whether it’s friends or strangers, together to party and hang out while drinking to fuel emotions and some drama. And, for decades, it’s been a winning formula for high ratings for reality television shows, although it’s come with its own set of problems in the form of lawsuits alleging the shows push alcohol on cast members and put them in harmful situations.
Paul has had her own problems with alcohol and was ordered to undergo a substance abuse evaluation after she was arrested for domestic violence in 2023. While Paul wouldn’t necessarily categorize the cast as a “good example” for people given their own craziness, she said she is the perfect example of someone who thought they needed alcohol to have fun and learned it’s actually not necessary.
“I just felt like socially for me, it was like, I don’t think it’ll be that fun without it,” Paul, who’s been sober for several years, said. “It’s a mind shift. Get out of the mindset that you need that. And it’s been really good for me to have a group of girls that don’t need it and we still have so much fun.”
Alcohol has been a staple of American life for decades and is an estimated $600 billion industry in the United States alone. But, Generation Z is charting a new path where alcohol consumption may be lower than their older counterparts. A Gallup survey from 2023 showed the share of people under the age of 35 who ever drink dropped 10 points to 62 percent from 72 percent in 2001 to 2003.
It’s given rise to the “sober curious” lifestyle trend, and the low or no-alcohol beverage industry is expected to grow by 25 percent between 2022 and 2026, according to IWSR, a drinks market analysis firm.
Given how central alcohol is to so many reality shows, Paul said Secret Lives of Mormon Wives offers an alternative for viewers and bucks the narrative that you need alcohol to have fun. The cast has parties at their houses, and they even traveled to Las Vegas for a girls’ weekend. While the cast admitted it might not seem like the most natural place for a group of Mormon women to visit, they spent time at clubs and casinos. They even acknowledged that just because they don’t drink, it doesn’t mean they don’t love to dance, just like any other 20- or 30-something woman.
“I think it’s awesome to showcase that you can go out and have fun without alcohol involved,” Paul said.
Secret Lives of Mormon Wives broke records for Hulu and has left fans absolutely clamoring for new episodes. Along with sobriety, the show tackles a host of issues, including infertility, religion, divorce and co-parenting, and the changing role of women in traditional cultures.
That openness is why Paul thinks the show has become so popular. Given the different paths the women take and the parts of their lives that they share, there’s likely at least one thing that everyone who watches the show can relate to or sympathize with.
“The Housewives, obviously, are a little older or there’s Teen Mom where they’re young, but we’re kind of smack in the middle where we’re young moms, either single, divorced or married, in the church or not. It’s just everything,” Paul said. “I think it just resonates with a huge crowd.”