Will The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives even survive this?
After Jen Affleck and Zac Affleck’s marital highs and lows played out on the breakout reality series’ first season, fans of the show were stunned to see the couple in the audience during the Oct. 22 episode of Dancing With the Stars.
The reality stars were seated alongside Golden Bachelorette Joan Vassos and former Bachelorette Kaitlyn Bristowe, who won the dancing competition’s 29th season in 2020. Kaitlyn later posted a video from the taping on her Instagram Story, where Jen smiled and waved at the camera as Zac wrapped his arm around his wife.
In the weeks before the dancing date night, Jen fueled rumors that she and Zac—who wed in 2019—had split by posting a series of cryptic TikTok posts. In one video posted Oct. 8, the influencer danced around her kitchen with the couple’s daughter Nora, 2, and son Lucas, 14 months, though her wedding ring noticeably absent.
Four days later, the 25-year-old teamed up with Secret Lives costars Mikayla Matthews and Mayci Neeley for a trio of contradictory clips, seemingly shot all at once as all three women wore the same outfits in each.
The first video insinuated a still-ringless Jen was no longer in a relationship, while in another, she flashed her wedding ring as the caption read, “You’re confused? I’m confused.” The third seemed to acknowledge the vague nature of the posts, as Jen wrote in the caption, “No one knows the full story.”
Jen and Zac’s relationship came to a head during season one of Secret Lives after she and her castmates attended a Chippendales striptease show in Las Vegas. The two argued about the matter over the phone as Jen defended her decision to attend the show, telling her husband, “I’m a human being and I did nothing wrong in the situation.”
But Zac, 28, offered a terse response in a text message shown onscreen.
“Seriously, I don’t want to hear one more thing about your heart,” he wrote. “Start taking accountability for your actions and for the situations you put yourself in. You’re a grown woman.”
He continued, “It doesn’t matter your intentions. You were there, and that’s the image you portray of yourself, your family, church etc.”