That leads us to the shrewd bit of cross-pollination happening for ABC and Hulu, owned by the same parent company in Disney. After testing the waters with a Mormon Wives crossover on Hulu’s Vanderpump Villa earlier this year, then casting not one, but two cast members for Dancing With the Stars, the burgeoning reality television universe will triple dip by casting Paul as Bachelorette. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season three returns on November 13 and The Bachelorette is slated for a 2026 debut. This shores up the streaming-first Mormon Wives audience, helping to lure key viewership demographics back to the brand’s broadcast offerings. And that transfer can’t come soon enough: The premiere episode of Bachelor in Paradise season 10 earned roughly 3.2 million fewer viewers than season two of Mormon Wives, both of which aired this year.
Those in the know have long been calling for the outsourcing of leads. “They should take any single guy from Love Island season seven—he’s the next Bachelor,” Chad Kultgen, cohost of popular Bachelor podcast Game of Roses and coauthor of How to Win the Bachelor, told Vanity Fair earlier this year. “They have done the work for you, made these people superstars in the reality dating TV format. That’s how they should be thinking.”
The powers that be, including newly instated showrunner Scott Teti, former executive producer of Bravo’s Summer House, appear to have been listening. Before Taylor was announced as the next Bachelorette, fans originally believed the news would reveal the lead of The Bachelor’s landmark 30th season due to scheduling. Previously, The Bachelorette aired in the spring or summer, followed by Paradise, then The Bachelor in January. The franchise last cast a lead from outside of its pool of Instagrammable suitors for season 25 in Matt James, who became the first-ever Black Bachelor. Although, he was best known on social media as a close friend of The Bachelorette runner-up Tyler Cameron.
Even the manner in which Taylor was announced feels fresh. This is the first time a lead hasn’t been announced on an ABC-affiliated platform like Good Morning America or an After the Final Rose special. Cooper as conduit for such news feels like acknowledgment that a young female audience tunes into her podcast—and that the podcasting realm itself is key to sustaining The Bachelor’s relevance. Further proof: Former Bachelor Nick Viall, host of the popular Viall Files podcast, hosted the season two Mormon Wives reunion. And the last Paradise reunion was not filmed on an ABC soundstage, but recorded for the official Bachelor Happy Hour podcast.
There will be inevitable growing pains with such a shake-up—the ABC audience has previously been less forgiving of unapologetic women—and Paul has already said that she’ll require any husband of hers to relocate to Utah. (Hope he has his Swig order down!) But this only further stokes the intrigue that comes with casting Paul—who is well-versed in making must-see TV. “The more open you are, the more backlash you can get,” she told VF in May, “but also the more relatable you are.”
