Ten months after proposing to The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul and seven since his season of The bachelorette gone off the rails, Doug Mason, TFP’s latest rose, is now “in a good headspace” to share his side of the story. In the first part of his presentation on Happy Hour for Singles podcast, Mason spoke with co-hosts and former Bachelorettes Charity Lawson and Rachel Recchia about what really happened between him and Paul on their still-unaired season of The bachelorette.
Mason has been confirmed as winner of Paul’s Bachelor season where, in season five of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Paul and co-star Jessi Draper discussed Mason’s resemblance to Paul’s ex, Dakota Mortensen. Mason accused Paul of “watering down the experience,” referring to their time together on the show. “After everything I said and did, it didn’t mean anything to her,” Mason told the podcast. “I reminded him of Dakota.” So what exactly did we miss between Paul and Mason?
Well, for starters, Mason said he was Paul’s first and only kiss the first night in the mansion. Mason described feeling instantly at ease when he first met Paul and how their “energies kind of coincided in that moment.” Mason had heard whispers about Paul before going on the show, but said he “didn’t want to go into this experience judging her at all…I just had a thing for Taylor.” He loved that she was a mother and recognized her more relaxed and empathetic side. During two months of filming The bachelorettethe couple ended up getting closer: Mason met Paul’s parents; her ex-husband, Tate Paul; and her children (Taylor shares two with Tate and one with Mortensen) – one-on-one, visiting her hometown and even sleeping together in fantasy suites. “I had feelings of love for Taylor for The bachelorette” he said. “I loved Taylor for who she was during the show. But of course, since then, I have understood what true love is, and that’s not all. What Taylor and I had on the show wasn’t real love.
Mason told Lawson and Recchia that he had lingering doubts about things happening between them in the long run, even while they were in the mansion. For one thing, Tate had pulled Mason aside off-camera and warned him that “being with Taylor would change your life.” Mason left that conversation feeling “exhausted.”
He also had the impression that Taylor hadn’t completely gotten over her most recent ex, Mortensen. During one of the group’s dates, a friend of Taylor’s compared Mason to Mortensen, and Mason said that Taylor’s “energy had completely changed and (she) saw me as the bad guy.” Mason told the podcast, “It was disheartening to be compared to someone who was so bad with Taylor” based on his looks alone. Mason started having doubts about Taylor after this and spoke to her directly about it. Taylor was receptive and they decided to take things slow in their relationship and not let the show dictate their process. Nevertheless, at the end of the show, Mason proposed to Taylor, even after she confessed to sleeping with Mortensen the night before leaving for The bachelorette. A month later, Mason and Taylor ended their engagement.
“I think over time I realized I was the backup for that two-month period,” Mason said. “And the reason that’s true is because, as she says, the night she left the engagement, she went back to Dakota.”
And that’s just the first part of the podcast – the second part of the podcast doesn’t have a set release date, but we can expect to hear more about Mason’s experience.
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