The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is back for its second series but the messy world of the infamous “mom-fluencers” is not without its drama, with the latest episode of the show leaving star Demi Engemann in tears.
Central to this series’ arc is Engemann and her reach for power within “mom-tok”, as well as her personal battle with infertility and her struggles to have a child with her husband Bret.
The reality TV show which first aired last year gained notoriety when the show’s star Taylor Frankie Paul revealed that some of the Mormon TikTok mums had secretly been involved in a swinging scandal.
In this latest episode, the “mom-tok” crew partook in a game of pregnancy roulette. The game demands that everyone involved take a pregnancy test with participants not knowing who’s pregnancy test result belongs to who.
The show’s stars Mayci Neeley and Mikayla Matthews used the game to announce their previously concealed pregnancies.
The reveal of the positive pregnancy tests in the game left Engemann feeling “triggered” and overwhelmed with emotion. Not initially knowing which tests belonged to who, she was temporarily given a false sense of hope which was quickly snatched away.
Expressing her anguish to the camera, Engemann said: “Initial reaction is like, holy s**t I'm pregnant, and then I'm like, wait no, there's no way that you're pregnant, all you get is negative tests [...] I can't even explain how deeply sad I'm feeling at this moment.”
She later sobbed: "I try so hard to consider everyone's feelings, and I feel like people are so flippant about things that bother me."
Her fellow “mom-tok” influencer Jessi Ngatikaura offered consolation. Describing it as “so wrong”, she said: “That wasn't a trick anyone was playing on you, but I think it was just really terrible timing.”
While Engemann had left fans divided this series with her harsh criticisms of the show’s other stars, viewers were quick to express their sympathy with her in this episode.
One fan commented: "Her crying was so heartbreaking! You could feel her pain."
Other viewers were more angry than upset with the game, with some even branding it as “cruel”. “Pregnancy test roulette is such a tone-deaf game to play knowing that one of your friends is struggling with infertility,” wrote one fan.
Another commented: “[I know] everyone doesn’t like Demi right now but the pregnancy test roulette was BEYOND mean to do knowing she is having trouble. Like come on did the person who came up with that have a brain?”
