What ABC Aired As a substitute of Taylor Frankie Paul’s Bachelorette Premiere
American Idol fans dimmed the lights this week a little sooner than usual.
After ABC announced Taylor Frankie Paul‘s season of The Bachelorette would no longer premiere on March 22, the network replaced the dating series with a re-run of the competition show.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star’s journey to finding the one was ultimately shelved on March 19 after a 2023 video of a physical altercation between her and then-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen surfaced. Shortly afterwards, a spokesperson for Disney Entertainment, the parent company to ABC and Hulu, shared insight into the company’s resolution.
“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today,” the spokesperson said in a statement to E! News, “we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family.”
As for Taylor—who shares a son with Dakota, as well as two other kids with ex Tate Paul—her rep addressed the footage in a statement to E! News, saying that the video was part of “a destructive campaign to harm Taylor” and categorized the release as “a reprehensible attempt to distract from” Dakota’s behavior.