Taylor Frankie Paul has admitted her The Bachelorette bachelors had questions about her soft-swinging past with ex-husband Tate Paul and her 2023 arrest for domestic violence.
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"I've got nothing else to hide. My arrest will always be a sensitive subject given the circumstances in that."
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As for the swinging, Taylor shared, "That's such a scandal headline -- but it's also a very traumatic time in my life. That was one of my rock-bottom points. I lost my family, my husband. It's so much deeper than that to me."
Taylor therefore noted that "deep conversations were had" with her bachelors during filming late last year.
Taylor explained how "anyone that actually cares about me" would "definitely be asking" questions about her difficult past and trauma from those experiences.
Taylor recalled her The Bachelorette suitors being "very receptive" to her explanations.
"Overall they were... nonjudgmental and open-minded," Taylor said.
Taylor dropped a bombshell in the Mormon community when she revealed in a May 2022 TikTok video that she and her ex-husband Tate -- with whom she welcomed daughter, Indy, 8, and son Ocean, 5 -- had participated in "soft swinging."
Taylor confessed she had violated the rules of her swinging agreement with Tate, which led to their divorce.
"The agreement was... as long as we were both there and we saw it and we knew it, it was okay, and the second it goes behind without each other, you've stepped out of the agreement. And I did that," she said in the video.
Taylor explained at the time that soft swinging is "when you do other things but you don't go all the way" with someone else.
RELATED LINK: 'THE BACHELORETTE' COUPLES NOW"That's what happened with us," Taylor noted.
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Taylor admitted at the time that she and a group of people had engaged in these consensual swinging parties on several occasions -- and that she had "made out with all of the husbands" in her group.
"There was a group of us that were intimate with each other," Taylor shared.
"All of us were pretty open to it and on board for it. Obviously no one was forced. We did this on occasion. We would have parties and everyone by the end of the night would go and do all that... It happened several times."
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' first season, which aired in 2023, addressed Taylor's "crazy swinging sex scandal" and featured her talking about "soft swinging parties," which had been common in her tight-knit circle of fellow MomTok influencers.
"I haven't told before what we were up to at these parties, and it's obviously not something I'm proud of, but it's freeing at the same time," Taylor, 30, told Us in May 2025.
"We did have sex in the shower with our husbands all together. We also had sex in the same bed at the same time."
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Taylor was taken into custody following a fight with Dakota in which she had allegedly thrown furniture at him and accidentally struck one of her children with a barstool.
Taylor was booked for aggravated assault, two counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, child abuse with injury, and criminal mischief, according to Us.
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The influencer pleaded guilty in August 2023 to aggravated assault. In exchange, the other four charges were dropped and Taylor ultimately reached a plea deal.
Taylor and Dakota, however, stayed together through the drama and welcomed a son, Ever True, in March 2024. They broke up months later in the fall, although Taylor didn't publicly confirm their split until early 2025.
After Taylor was announced as The Bachelorette star for Season 22 in September 2025, she admitted to Alex Cooper on the "Call Her Daddy" podcast that it wasn't a clean break from Dakota and the pair hooked up again.
However, Taylor insisted she was done with that toxic relationship and that the soft-swinging lifestyle is "not who I am anymore."
Taylor explained how she has turned her mistakes into life lessons.
"I think [that makes you] more wise and aware -- or at least self-aware," Taylor said.
"I can't say that I'll never make mistakes again. We're human. We always will. But it's learning, growing and then having the tools to navigate the next one."
ABC recently announced the identities of the 22 bachelors, ages 28 through 43, who will show up to compete for Taylor's heart on Night 1 of The Bachelorette.
The bachelors include a cowboy, a mechanical engineer, a singer and songwriter, and multiple professional athletes.
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About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
