For anyone navigating the high-stakes fishbowl of reality television, the pressure to maintain a highly specific, curated image is immense. But for Layla Taylor, star of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the weight of living for everyone else finally became too heavy to carry.
During an appearance on Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast, the 25-year-old reality star and mother of two took a definitive step into her own truth, coming out publicly as bisexual.
“I’m gay and I’m bi and date women and men,” Taylor shared candidly at the very top of the episode.
It was a vulnerable declaration from a woman whose life has been deeply intertwined with the strict cultural and religious expectations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith she converted to at the age of 16. Yet, as Taylor explained, the revelation isn’t a sudden shift, but rather the culmination of feelings she has carried since childhood.
“It’s just something that I honestly didn’t really know how to formally address for a long period of my life,” Taylor admitted to Shetty. “We’re only on this earth for however long we are here and I’ll be damned if I’m not able to be fully who I am.”
The Catalyst of a Breakup
Taylor’s path to self-discovery was accelerated by a series of major life transitions. After marrying Clayton Wessel in 2020 and welcoming two sons, Oliver and Maxwell, the marriage ended in divorce. Subsequent relationships followed, including a romance with Cameron Jolly—who appeared on the second season of the hit reality show—and a later relationship with Mason McWhorter.
When her relationship with McWhorter ended, the sudden quiet left Taylor with space she hadn’t experienced in years.
“Honestly, I went through a breakup at the beginning of this year and I feel like for just a long period of my life, was constantly living my life for other people,” she explained. “Whether that was being a mom or I was in a marriage… I was always fulfilling other people around me. And it honestly just caused me to never really focus on myself and never be able to really just sit alone with who I am as a person.”
That heartbreak, she now realizes, was a necessary turning point. “I think honestly that breakup was like a blessing in disguise because I feel like now I’ve been fully able to just focus on Layla. And yeah, just focus on who I truly am.”
Seeing Without Representation
Looking back, Taylor can pinpoint the exact moments her worldview began to expand, even if she lacked the vocabulary to understand it at the time. Growing up without queer representation in her immediate community made interpreting her own identity a confusing, isolated process.
“I would be watching shows like Pretty Little Liars, and I would watch Shay Mitchell kissing a girl. Was like, ‘Wait, why is that hot?’ ” Taylor reflected. “But I didn’t know what those feelings were because I didn’t have queer representation around me. [No one] I could look at it and be like, ‘OK, this is normal.’ ”
The theoretical became reality recently when Taylor began exchanging direct messages with a woman. What started online eventually led to an intentional, revealing first date.
“We met up, and we hung out and it was just kind of like that first kiss of, like, this wasn’t like a drunk moment,” Taylor told Shetty. “Like this was me intentionally going into a moment knowing how I felt about women.”
A Secret Shared with the World First
In a twist typical of the modern celebrity era, millions of podcast listeners now know Taylor’s truth before many of the people in her immediate social circle. She confessed that she hadn’t yet broken the news to her Mormon Wives co-stars, noting that a current hiatus from filming has naturally created some physical and emotional distance within the group.
“I know that there’s some friendships that are in different places than they have been in the past,” she said of her castmates. “But I think right now we’ve just been kind of a little separate since just going on that pause from filming and everything like that. So I just haven’t seen any of them in person.”
Ultimately, Taylor hopes that by stepping into the spotlight with her authentic identity, she can provide the very representation she lacked as a young girl.
“I’m very proud to be bi, and I’m very proud now to be out,” Taylor said. “And I hope that if anyone’s in a situation that I am as well… I hope that they can feel safe to do so and proud to do so.”
Following the episode’s release, Taylor doubled down on her gratitude, leaving a brief note on Shetty’s social media: “Thank you for giving me such a safe place to share 🤍”