As if there’s not enough affair drama on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the cast is now accusing Demi Engemann of planning to manufacture a story line where she was unfaithful with Taylor Frankie Paul‘s ex Dakota Mortensen.
“Demi wanted to have a huge finale for season 1 and so she was like, ‘We can make up this whole thing that I have an affair with Dakota,’” Mikayla Matthews claimed on the Tuesday, May 20, episode of “The Viall Files” podcast. “We were like, ‘Oh, that’s a weird thing to say.’”
Jessi Ngatikaura jumped in to say Demi “had a whole plan,” adding, “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, guys, this could be funny.’ It was like, ‘We could meet in a car and then they could catch us.’”
Jessi, 32, claimed that the whole cast has had a falling out with Demi, 30. “It says a lot that there are seven women who feel the exact same way about her,” Jessi added. “It’s not just me that had issues.”
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Season 2 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives took a tough turn for both Demi and Jessi. Before the season premiered on Thursday, May 20, Demi filmed season 2 of Vanderpump Villa where Marciano Brunette admitted to developing feelings for her — despite her being married to Bret Engemann.
“Nothing happened with Marciano. At the expense of sounding rude, there wasn’t even a remote attraction to him. It sucks that women can’t be kind and friendly and even playful with men in this world without it being taken as like you’re open. I had a rock on my finger the entire time I was there,” she exclusively told Us Weekly in May. “I brought up my marriage multiple times and they were told that we were married women — so it sucks that we couldn’t just go and have a good time and that he couldn’t respect that.”
At the time, Demi acknowledged the rift between her and the rest of her costars.
“A lot of the women [on my show] and now Marciano jump on the train of taking things out of context. To me, it’s completely a clout tactic in my mind of trying to ride the clout and ride the wave of the success of the show and confuse people. To me, it’s manipulative and I don’t roll that way,” she noted. “You’ll see that I’ve said very little about anything that happens behind closed doors or behind the scenes or that would give anything away or conflict with the girls.”
She continued: “I’m just trying to stay in my lane as much as I can. I am trying to control what I can control, lean on my husband, lean on my family and then handle it professionally and handle it the best way that I possibly can. Given the fact that I was a victim in this situation, that’s how I’ve decided to handle it. There’s no right or wrong way to handle this type of situation but I am doing the best I can. Luckily I have the support of my husband and the truth on my side.”
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Marciano, for his part, made an appearance on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives to claim that Jessi was the one he actually had an alleged affair with off screen. While Jessi couldn’t speak to Marciano’s claims, she did offer an update on her marriage to husband Jordan Ngatikaura.
“I will say that reality TV is hard on any relationship, whether it’s a friendship or a marriage,” Jessi revealed on “The Viall Files” podcast. “We’ve been through a lot and now it’s going to be public.”
Jessi was asked about her not wearing a wedding ring, to which she noted that her and Jordan are “working through things,” adding, “We’re trying our best — but things are a little tricky right now. I’m excited to hopefully someday share more about that. But right now it’s just real life and it’s hard.”
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is currently streaming on Hulu.
