After spending millions of dollars and several months to film Taylor Frankie Paul’s season of The Bachelorette, ABC still made the (right) decision to scrap her entire season three days before it was supposed to air. The cancellation of the fan-favorite reality dating series came after a 2023 clip of Taylor throwing stools at her ex, Dakota Mortensen, leaked to TMZamid an ongoing domestic violence investigation, with allegations of abuse coming from both parties.
However, despite the open investigation, Dakota is still getting screen time thanks to Alex Cooper’s latest series, Unwell Winter Games—and the internet had mixed reactions when the podcaster turned media mogul announced the show’s cast on Monday, March 30. Unwell’s followers specifically called out Dakota’s involvement amid public scandal, as well as Love Island USA’s Huda Mustafa, who reportedly received a temporary restraining order from boyfriend Louis Russell’s ex, Nicole Olivera, earlier this month.
“As a company that empowers women, why are we giving abusive men a platform?” one person questioned in the comments section of Alex’s initial announcement, while another added, “I spy domestic abuse and filed restraining orders all over this lineup with a mix of actual cool people…what is happening are there no standards anymore??????”
According to Unwell, “The show promises fierce competition, unexpected alliances, and the kind of unfiltered drama that has defined Unwell across its programming slate.”
The series follows 16 contestants as they compete in “mental and physical challenges over four days” at “a luxury chalet in Park City, Utah.” It’s unclear when exactly the series was filmed, but it seemingly took place before the Dakota and Taylor video leak, as well as before the reported Huda restraining order drama. Still, that’s not an excuse.
While Taylor got her series pulled from air, Dakota still gets to star in a YouTube competition reality series, but don’t get it twisted—the plug should have been pulled on Taylor’s season of The Bachelorette. Neither of them deserves a platform like this. Not now. And perhaps not ever.
The double standard of Dakota’s new project is just another chapter in the same story we’ve seen time and time again in the realm of reality TV, which seems to reward batshit behavior for the sake of on-camera drama. But when offscreen behavior involves restraining orders, legal action, and physical threats, is it even worth the viewership? Production companies, including Unwell, seem to think so.
The latest season of The Traitors gave former Bachelor Colton Underwood another shot at being a microcelebrity, though he was served a restraining order after allegedly stalking Cassie Randolph in 2020. House of Villains was basically created to platform problematic players of reality TV’s past, like Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Teresa Giudice, who served 11 months in federal prison for fraud in 2015.
Perhaps Unwell Winter Games plans to follow a similar format, since it includes polarizing pop culture figures like fraud diva Anna Delvey and Dakota’s Mormon Wives castmate Demi Engemann.
But here’s what would be a better plan: for Unwell to read the room, cut its losses, and cancel the whole thing altogether.
