Bachelor Nation, we are officially swinging into a new era. Taylor Frankie Paul — of MomTok, “soft swinging,” and The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives fame — is the next Bachelorette. For those who don’t have their Swig order down, a brief recap of her lore: In 2022, the then mother of two and MomTok Queen Bee revealed in a video she was getting divorced (while, naturally, lip-synching to Miley Cyrus’s “Malibu”) because she’d violated the “soft swinging” arrangement made with others in her MomTok friend group. Shortly after, Paul started a very turbulent (to put it mildly) relationship with the father of her third child, before ultimately splitting. All of which takes us to Wednesday’s announcement — marking the first time the Bachelorette hasn’t come from a previous season of The Bachelor. In an interview with the millennial Diane Sawyer (aka Alex Cooper), Paul shared what she’s looking for in a partner, ideally, between the ages of 27 and 43. He doesn’t have to be Mormon, but he needs to participate in her TikToks (like the “audition video” that maybe got her here) and move to Utah. Oh, and to circle back on the whole soft-swinging thing, Paul said, “I would never do that again.”
If unapologetically messy Paul seems like a major departure from every other Bachelorette (never forget Hannah “Jesus Still Loves Me” Brown), you’re not wrong. In fact, that may be the point. Because, as anyone who stopped watching the show a decade ago can attest, the franchise has been in its flop era for quite some time — during which Love Is Blind and Love Island have captured its former appointment-viewing glory. Even ABC seemed to acknowledge this when, in the wake of Jenn Tran’s rather disastrous finale, it paused the show. Now, with a fresh showrunner (from Summer House, no less) at the helm, the franchise appears to be making what many are calling “a wise Hail Mary.” The obvious questions: Will the unconventional casting choice lead to a total trainwreck? Will Paul’s penchant for chaos prove too much for the relatively tame show? Or, against all odds and logic, will The Bachelorette finally deliver the “craziest season yet”? Who knows, but fingers crossed Dakota Johnson is next.