The Bachelorette's Doug Mason Breaks Silence on Ending Engagement to Taylor Frankie Paul: 'That Experience Has Been Looming in My Life for Some Time'

The Bachelorette’s Doug Mason is speaking out following his broken engagement to Taylor Frankie Paul.

Mason got engaged to the former Secret Lives of Mormon Wives during what would have been the finale of her unaired The Bachelorette season.

“We gotta talk about something,” he began a September 28 video shared to his Instagram Story. “Let’s talk about The Bachelorette. That experience has been looming in my life for some time, and although I’ve been moved on for a long time, I think it’s important that I express to you guys that I have.”

While Mason didn’t find his happy ending with Paul, he left the show with something else.

“I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity just to go on the show,” Mason added. “I met some brothers, and I learned a lot about myself. I have officially moved on and this is me saying that I am going that way. So, hope that everybody can understand that it was in my past, and now I’m focusing on my future.”

“So, take care. Thanks so much for listening,” he concluded.

Paul admitted to her Secret Lives of Mormon Wives costars during the Season 5 premiere that she and her ex-partner Dakota Mortensen slept together when she went back to Utah after filming for the Bachelorette concluded. At the time, she was still engaged to Mason.

The former couple ended their engagement a month after Mason proposed in December 2025.

ABC has not announced any plans to ever air Paul’s season, so fans will not get to see how her love story with Mason came to be.

The network ultimately pulled her season following an altercation with Mortensen. In the 2023 dispute between the former couple, Paul was seen throwing chairs at her baby daddy as well as punching and kicking him. The video surfaced prior to the start of the Bachelorette season premiere.

Paul was on the hit Hulu show for five seasons; however, prior to the start of filming for Season 6, she announced her departure.

In a lengthy September 21 Instagram post, she shared, “My gratitude goes to all the networks that supported me throughout this and gave me the chance to return,” she began, seemingly referring to being asked to be on the next season of the show. “However I don’t desire to move forward like this.”

Paul blamed how she was “bullied” by her costars “for months” as a reason to no longer be a part of the cast moving forward.

At this time, Paul remains single. She broke up with country music and TikTok star Ben Lambert sometime this year, and in September, left a heartfelt message on Instagram following their split.

“Ben is a reminder that there are good men out there. He so was patient, gentle, kind, understanding and tried to get me out of the cycle I was in," she shared. "Saying goodbye in the show was the last time I saw him and deeply mourned him. We’ve gone our separate ways."

Since leaving SLOMW, the reality star is looking to better herself and is focusing on her future.

In a September 29 Instagram post, Paul shared several photos with her children, and in her caption, she noted that she is leaning on her faith to get her through life’s hurdles.

However, her co-parenting time was reduced after allegedly failing a drug test.