Bachelor Nation
Taylor Frankie Paul Reveals Status With Recent Mystery Man Ahead of ’The Bachelorette’
Just over a week before Taylor Frankie Paul was announced as the lead for Season 22 of The Bachelorette, she had fans wondering if she was in a new relationship because of a cryptic Instagram photo.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star shared a now-deleted picture of a man, whom fans speculate is songwriter Ben Lambert, holding a guitar on Instagram. His face wasn’t shown, but many fans thought she was “soft-launching” a new romance following her split from Dakota Mortensen. While appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast to announce her Bachelorette news, Paul set the record straight.
“It wasn’t a soft-launch,” she insisted. “I have met the guy twice. It was funny.”
Paul said she posted the photo to “confuse people” and pointed out that she does things like that “all the time” because it’s “fun” and “entertaining.” She added, “I guess I didn’t think that one too much through. I could understand how this looks, but to be honest, I’m going to be honest, I’ve met him twice. Likable guy, he’s great. Are we official? No. I don’t know the guy. Nothing along the lines of a soft-launch. I don’t know him.”
Plus, after two back-to-back relationships, Paul said she wanted to get back in the dating game before romancing more than 20 guys at once on the ABC show.
During the chat with Alex Cooper, the mom of three also revealed how she came to meet the mystery man, who isn’t even from her home state of Utah. It all started on TikTok Live!
“He was singing and playing guitar,” Paul shared. “It was, like, new to him, too. I was like, ‘This guy’s got a voice!’ I’ve never, one, sat and watched a TikTok Live, really, nor do I write on them. But I was the one who was like, ‘You have a really good voice, can you play this song?'”
After Paul popped into the comments section, the mystery man asked where she was from, and when she told him, he revealed that his ex-girlfriend used to watch The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Paul played it cool and only said she “made an appearance” on the Hulu series once. “I’m literally just teasing him,” she laughed. “Then he ended up looking me up after the fact.”
It wasn’t a deterrent, though, as the guy with the guitar ended up visiting Paul in Utah twice. She warned him that she was about to be on The Bachelorette, which he was “cool” with because there were “no feelings” between them yet.
“The next time he came, I was like, ‘Would you ever come on it?’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t really want to date on reality TV,'” she added. “He’s like a good soul. All my friends are like, ‘Green flag, green flag!’ The fact that he didn’t hop onto that. He’s like, ‘Go do your thing. If you meet someone, we weren’t meant to be, and if not, maybe I’ll be here.'”
Paul said meeting this guy helped her realize that there are “good guys” out there. She also said her mystery man would be willing to come on the show if she got to the end and wasn’t interested in any of the men. “If we’re down the line, and I’m still not feeling it, I was like, ‘Would you be open to it?’ And he’s like, ‘If you’re at the very end and you still have your mind on it, then yeah, I’d be open to it.'”
Paul was previously married to Tate Paul, with whom she shares her first two children, from 2016 to 2022. After the split, she started dating Mortensen. They welcomed their first child in March 2024 and were together on and off before their official split earlier this year.
The Bachelorette, Season 22, 2026, ABC
