The announcement comes after ABC confirmed in March that the reality dating show would not air in July, as it had for the last three seasons.
Taylor Frankie Paul is the newest Bachelorette!
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star, 31, was announced as the lead for season 22 of The Bachelorette on Call Her Daddy.
"You are on Call Her Daddy so we can officially announce that you are this season's Bachelorette. How are you feeling?" host Alex Cooper asked Paul.
"Surreal. It has not hit me right now in this moment," she explained. "I'm just thinking about it, and it's not real. And it's not going to be until I think the limo is pulling up, you know? And meeting the people."
Adding that she's "nervous," Paul continued, "How did I get here? In my head I'm like, 'How is this happening?' That's my answer." The mom of three went on to share that her being on the show started as a joke three years ago when she made a TikTok, but it was something that she always saw as "unattainable."
"I don't know if that got their attention ... It was mainly a joke to me ... Then we had a meeting. I still didn't believe it until i got the invitation, 'Will you be our Bachelorette?' Same reaction, shaking, pacing back and forth. There's no way, no way."
Paul went on to admit that she did have some reservations about becoming the Bachelorette, as well as confirming that she is still going to be a part of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.
"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 explained.
"But then I'm also thinking on the side; the other two moms that are in my group [Jen Affleck and Whitney Leavitt] are doing Dancing with the Stars and they brought their family out; but also they have their husbands; so for me I’m like,is this possible for me to do as a single mom?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," she added.
The reality TV star added that the news was "shocking" to her family but said "they're all excited."
As for what her SLOMW costars think about her being the Bachelorette, Paul revealed that they all know about her news and she'd received nothing but "positive" feedback.
"I think most of them are going to be happy for me and support me," Paul said. "I can't speak for everyone and what they actually truly think, you know never really know. But I think we're all kind of doing our own thing so everyone is getting their own shots; it's not just about her her her."
Cooper then asked if she thinks there's going to be any "side group chats" about Paul being on the show.
"I can't say, I don't know ... I guess we'll see on whatever season we'll be on," she said.
Paul rose to fame as an influencer in the #MomTok community. In June 2022, she revealed that she and her husband, Tate Paul, were getting a divorce, setting off a soft-swinging scandal that rocked the community.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives follows the aftermath of Paul's marriage ending, leading her to expose that a group of friends from MomTok were "soft-swinging" and "had an arrangement" together. The show also followed Paul's new relationship with boyfriend Dakota Mortensen. The ups and downs of their relationship while expecting their first baby played out in the show's first season, and the pair have since split.
The influencer shares two children, Indy and Ocean, with Paul, and a son, Ever, with Mortensen.
Cooper teased the announcement was on the horizon by posting a video of herself cutting into a cake, which read "Season 30" in blue icing, on her podcast's Instagram page. She then showed a slice of the cake with pink frosting and asked, "Wait, why is it pink?"
The post was captioned, "Change of plans 🌹."
Cooper, 31, continued to drop clues about the announcement in a follow-up video. In the clip, she dramatically answered the phone, saying, “Hello. Hello, ABC. What can I do for you?”
“You want Call Her Daddy to announce the Next Bachelor?” she continued. “What do you mean it’s the Bachelorette? Shut up. How did you get her to say yes? But she’s never even been a part of The Bachelor. This is gonna be great for ratings. But what about the other show she’s on?”
“We’re announcing tomorrow,” she concluded. “Let’s do this.”
The announcement comes after ABC confirmed in March that the reality dating show would not air in July, as it had for the last three seasons. At the time, Deadline reported that while the series has not been canceled, it will unlikely return this year.
"The good news is I know it's not going away," Bachelor franchise host Jesse Palmer explained on a February 2025 episode of the Playing the Field podcast. "I know it's definitely coming back. Without being able to get into too much of the creative decisions on it, I know that when it does [return], I just think it's going to be absolutely tremendous."
He also noted that a summer break for the Bachelor spinoff was "not unprecedented."
The same month, season 21 Bachelorette Jenn Tran, who was the first Asian American woman to lead the series, shared her thoughts about the show taking a pause.
"The Bachelorette does usually air in the summer when people are traveling -- I heard that it doesn't do as well as The Bachelor," she told PEOPLE. "So maybe it'll give a chance for the next Bachelorette to air at a time where there's more visibility. That would be nice."
Tran's season ended in September 2024 with an explosive After the Final Rose episode in which she revealed that she and winner Devin Strader had broken up. At the time, she claimed their dynamic changed almost immediately after filming the finale.
"As soon as we had left Hawai'i, things were just different," she said during the After the Final Rose special. "It kind of just felt like he was pulling away all the promises that he had made to me -- wanting to move somewhere together, and wanting to have this future planned out, and wanting to see each other all the time."
Tran explained that she stopped receiving calls and texts from Stader, and grew "confused." Then, one night, she got a call from her then fiancé.
"He called me," she explained,"and basically broke off engagement."
["He said] he didn't love me anymore; didn't feel same way; felt like something had been off since second thing he proposed. He regretted getting engaged."
The Bachelorette season 22 will debut on ABC in 2026, and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives returns for season 3 on Hulu on Nov. 13, 2025.