While it might not be a shock to some to know reality TV is not quite as real as it is presented,longtime The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives cast member Dakota Mortensen claims the world needs to know he is not the “domestic abuser,” “serial adulterer” and overall heel the Hulu series made him out to be.
“By broadcasting fabricated statements, stage scenes presented as spontaneous fact, and portrayals constructed by deleting the footage that contradicted the known false narrative, defendants placed Mortensen before the public in a false light, as an abuser, a retaliator, and an adulterer, that false light would be highly offensive to a reasonable person,” declares a defamation suit filed by Mortensen on Friday in Utah state court.
Seeking a jury trial, Frankie Taylor Paul’s ex is hoping to put the Disney-owned streamer, plus Mormon Wives producers Ludwig Productions and Jeff Jenkins Productions in the spotlight. Represented by Draper, UT firm Tycksen & Shattuck, Mortensen is going after a menu of damages in excess of $300,000 — which could add to millions if bundled together under the banner of “reputational” and economic harm.
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Mortensen was one of the major players in the drama that saw the Paul-fronted Season 22 of The Bachelorette pulled in late March by Hulu after news of a domestic assault investigation against her and her former boyfriend became public,.
Still, it seems like Mortensen liked being on the racey Mormon Wives, and the notoriety it brought him — until more recently he didn’t.
Hulu
Mortensen was featured on Season 3 through Season 5 of Mormon Wives. The whole thing eventually saw Paul not being charged by the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office for domestic violence. As the couple fought over custody of their children, Paul’s Bachelorette season has still not aired, and probably never will. In September, Paul announced she had no “desire to move forward” with a return to Mormon Wives for its sixth season.
Clearly, Paul’s ex has some misgivings of his own.
“Mortensen does not complain that a reality program edited his participation unflatteringly,” Friday’s 14-page filing states of Mormon Wives. “He complains the defendants broadcast statements of fact that were fabricated. The defendants knew to be false at the time, or recklessly disregarded that they were false, and that the broadcasts have destroyed his reputation and livelihood in the community where he lives and works.”
Including supposedly being hit a one point with a pizza box by Paul, affairs that allegedly never occurred and a ”measurable collapse in his social media following and the commercial value built on it,” Mortensen’s complaint actually appears in some sense to have been a non-event waiting to happen — aka he was looking for a resolution with producers before going to court. Instead, as detailed in the complaint in a back-and-forth of correspondence between Mortensen’s attorneys and counsel for Jeff Jenkins Productions over the claims of falsehoods, the Mormon Wives producers allegedly waved away the issues he raised.
“The series across seasons 3, 4, and 5 presented Mortensen to millions of viewers as a domestic abuser, as a man who retaliated against the mother of his child by reporting her to child protective services and as a serial adulterer,” Mortensen’s defamation suit continues.
“These portrayals were false. Material elements of them were not drawn from anything Mortensen said or did. They were invented by the series producers, assembled from staged events and from the deliberate deletion of footage that contradicted the storyline, and published after the producers had been informed by Mortensen and by others that the allegations were false.”
Two words – paper, trail.
No surprise, Hulu had no comment on Mortensen’s suit when contacted today by Deadline.
