How ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Got an Emmy Nomination

It was January 2024, and I was interviewing Rob Mills, Disney’s executive VP of unscripted and alternative entertainment, at a Realscreen conference panel in New Orleans when he first teased the title of a show that was coming soon to Hulu: “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” The audience chuckled — what a wild title! But I remember thinking even at the time that it sounded like a hit.

“Originally it was called ‘Mom Tok,’” Mills notes. “But TikTok can be a barrier to entry. Not everybody
s on TikTok. ‘The Secret Wives of Mormon Wives’ felt broader. It felt more salacious. You definitely knew that title, once you heard it, was everything,” he said.

The “Mormon Wives” stars first earned notoriety (and landed the Hulu show!) because of a sex-swinging scandal that took TikTok by storm. But soon, Mills and his team realized the show would be bigger than that one scandal — and they received some important notes from high above: Disney Entertainment co chairman Dana Walden.

“Dana texted me last Memorial Day weekend and said, ‘I just watched’ — I didn’t even know that she had the episode! — ‘and there’s so much potential here.’ She gave some really good feedback that helped make the show better,” he says. The biggest note was that viewers didn’t necessarily know about the swinging scandal — and that it didn’t really matter. The story of these women was bigger than that.

“Dana oversees hundreds of thousands of hours of programming, so she doesn’t have time to get involved with everything,” Mills notes. “I also was in the middle of taking my daughter to see ‘The Garfield Movie,’ and I was so glad for Dana texting me, so I could walk out of it. That was also really wonderful!”

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” was an immediate hit in Season 1, making it Hulu’s mostwatched unscripted series premiere of 2024. The second season surpassed that, hitting 5 million views within the first five days of release. It’s those kind of numbers that made the show undeniable enough to capture the eye of Emmy voters.

“I do think it shows that people took the time to watch this show,” Mills says. “There was a lot of craftsmanship here, not only in the actual show, but the fact that it had a theme song that people were humming. And even just the title, so much work went into this.”

This year’s unstructured reality category has a bit of everything: “Mormon Wives,” “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” “Love on the Spectrum,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked” and last year’s winner, “Welcome to Wrexham.” “I have to say there is a real breadth in there,” Mills says. “These are five very different shows. I don’t know that you can say the same about the reality competition category.”

Mills credits previous category nominee “Vanderpump Rules” (and before that, the “Below Deck” franchise) for opening the door to this kind of lifestyle docuseries.

“Historically, this type of show doesn’t usually cut through,” he notes. “When ‘Vanderpump Rules’ got nominated, I think it showed, really to the credit of Academy voters, that things that are in the zeitgeist are what gets nominated. That’s not always the case in award shows. And clearly, ‘Mormon Wives’ was totally in the zeitgeist as last year. But that gets you so far. If you look under the hood, this is an incredibly well-made show from everyone, from the producers to the actual women on the show. I also think just sometimes it is timing. We launched Season 2 right when voting started.”

How long until Mills expands the franchise and finds a “Secret Lives of (fill in the blank) Wives” spinoff?

“We can absolutely do the secret lives of many other types of wives, but I think we want to be careful,” he says. “But yes, this could be a franchise starter for sure.”

Save it for our next panel, Millsy!