"The dirty laundry I aired out on reality TV": Chandler on getting cut from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
Chandler Higginson spent the spring filming with Hulu's newest MomTok, and by premiere night her name had moved somewhere much smaller in the credits.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County premiered on Hulu on November 12, 2026, as the first spinoff of the 2024 hit about Utah's "MomTok" influencers and their swinging scandal. The new version moves to Southern California, with Mormon Wives original Jen Affleck as the bridge: she moved to Orange County and merged her new friends with the old ones. The two groups promptly split into camps, the churchgoing "Molly Mormons" on one side and the loosely affiliated on the other.
Chandler Higginson was supposed to be one of the faces of it.
Who is Chandler Higginson?
Hulu announced the spinoff's cast in April, and Chandler was the least famous name on the list. Next to Aspyn Ovard and podcaster Bobbi Althoff, she was a 32-year-old accounts receivable specialist at a wheel company, posting family videos on TikTok.
She and her husband, Dylan Higginson, have four kids: Dax, Coco, Kord and Banks. Her way into the group was a friendship with castmate Ashleigh Pease, the Australian fitness influencer, with whom she'd been tagged in Instagram posts since 2023.
And she did film. In June, she was spotted shooting with the cast, from a guided beach meditation to a group party.
The trailer without Chandler
On September 29, Hulu released its "Meet the OC Moms" video. Every main cast member got an introduction except Chandler. She'd also been dropped from the press materials, and a new name had appeared: Jordan McClanahan, a fitness trainer who wasn't on the April list at all.
Fans noticed. When an Instagram fan account pointed out the swap, Dylan answered in the comments.
"There is ALOT to be said, we will share soon," Dylan Higginson wrote.
Chandler updated her Instagram bio to "@secretlivesonhulu???🤪" and said nothing else for a while.
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What Chandler said about getting cut
When she did talk, it was in TikToks. In one, she pictured herself as a "fly on the wall" hovering above the Orange County cast. In another, a breezy vacation video, she spelled it out:
"Me on vacation realizing I won't be spending the next month anxious about the world knowing my dirty laundry I aired out on reality TV because I was cut from the main cast."
In the caption, she wrote that the whole experience "feels like a fever dream," and that she's "sending good vibes to the ladies." She also liked fan comments calling the cut a "blessing" and "God's protection."
She hasn't said what the dirty laundry was. And Dylan's "we will share soon" is still waiting for its follow-up.
Is Chandler in Mormon Wives: Orange County at all?
Yes, a little. Chandler appears briefly throughout the season with a "Friend of the Mormons" tag instead of a main-cast slot. In the Palm Springs episode, McCall DaPron brings her along on the group trip.
That same trip is how her replacement gets in. A heated conversation in Palm Springs leaves DaPron feeling like the odd woman out, and in Episode 3 she brings in her lifelong best friend: McClanahan. McClanahan told Bustle the late arrival was about timing, since she'd just had a newborn, and called her entrance "really natural."
DaPron had a simpler explanation for adding her best friend mid-season. She said she "had to bring in some reinforcement."
Previously we wrote: Why is Barbra Streisand not in Focker In-Law? It isn't her schedule and it isn't her health