"I Spent My Whole Life Trying To Be More White": Layla Taylor Steps Into Her Power On "Mormon Wives"

If you’ve never seen The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, you’d probably be surprised to know that there is, in fact, one lone Black star featured among the women displayed on the billboards you pass on your commute. If you do a very intentional double-take, you’ll see Layla Taylor, camouflaged with the same long, wavy tresses as her costars, staring back at you. 

It wasn’t until I started watching the series, prompted by the news that Taylor Frankie Paul would be the next lead of The Bachelorette (a show I follow every season), that I discovered the #MomTok swinging scandal that spawned the hit Hulu show, which has just released its explosive third season. And although Taylor’s storyline is obviously scintillating — and what kicked off the fandom entirely — I immediately wanted to know more about Layla, the quietest member of #MomTok, who had a very minimal storyline. 

From the pilot episode, I instantly had questions about Layla’s experience. Why was her hair always straight in these windy, rainy show openers? Although she spent so much time in her costar Jessi Draper Ngatikaura’s salon chair, why was Layla's long, straight hair always nearly done to perfection whenever the camera panned to her? As a mixed-race girl with curly hair myself, I felt like I instinctively knew the answers to my questions. And knowing that the show centered mostly on white women in Salt Lake City, I wasn’t hopeful that the cultural nuances of Layla’s unique experience as the only woman of color would ever be addressed. But in Season 3 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Layla begins to tell her story — an all-too-familiar one for many Black women who grew up in predominantly white communities — her way. 

"I kept continuing to go to Jessi, just because I just don't want to ruffle any feathers. A lot of people assume that all those girls [from the show] did go to JZ, so if we were to switch, people assume that it's for the worst, and it was a hard situation to navigate.”

When she noticed that she was experiencing balding from the extensions she had installed at Jessi’s salon, JZ Styles, Layla decided it was finally time to take a big step in advocating for herself. “I was going to Jessi for probably around two years, and I was just noticing some issues with my hair," Layla tells BuzzFeed ahead of the premiere of the third season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. “I was noticing it wasn't working for my certain hair texture and my certain hair type, but it was hard for me to bring it up.”

In an effort not to hurt her friend, Layla continued to go to Jessi for her hair extensions, because she didn’t “want to ruffle any feathers.” Layla shares, “A lot of people assume that all those girls [on the show] did go to JZ, so if we were to switch, people assume that it's for the worst, and it was a hard situation to navigate.”

For Layla, making this initial effort to find the right haircare for herself ultimately became an epiphany on a larger issue she has navigated as a biracial woman in Salt Lake City. “Ultimately, when it came down to it, I feel like I spent a long, long time in my life, basically my whole life, trying to be more white,” Layla says.

However, switching from JZ Styles had bigger implications than what people who aren’t on TV could easily do: simply going ghost and trying a new salon. For Layla, switching to a Black salon would mean facing a conversation with your white best friend about Black hair textures. And on top of that, the conversation would be filmed on an insanely popular reality TV show with that best friend for millions to draw conclusions about, when, simply, you just needed something different for your hair type.

Layla ended up having that very loaded conversation with her best friend Jessi on camera. In the current season’s fourth episode, when Jessi notices that Layla’s hair looks longer, Layla rips off the band-aid. She says she did feel that Jessi heard her.

“I think she did, for sure,” Layla says. “And it's a hard thing, especially because I wasn't leaving because I didn't like the way that her color would turn out or anything. It was just that she didn't necessarily have the right education to properly handle ethnic hair. I don't want to make her seem like she has a lack of education, because that's not the case. But when she's providing hair services, she's providing them to the mass majority of Utah, which is white women. And I understand that, and I can empathize with her in that situation. But I think she took it really well. We’re best friends, so I think she understood where I was coming from. She just wanted me to feel confident and feel good in my hair, and if that was going somewhere else, then I think that it was okay with her.”

This season, we see Layla getting a sew-in at a Black hair salon, and this is the moment where Layla's mask falls off; she's completely vulnerable, while also finally getting a chance to connect with someone who understands the experience of being Black in Salt Lake City. "It was such a vulnerable state to be in," Layla admits. "I was experiencing a lot of balding, and I was experiencing a lot of issues that were making me incredibly insecure in my hair, and I always have been. Since I was a little girl, the second I get out of the shower, I'm blowing out my hair and I'm having it straight, and it's just taking a lot working through those traumas that I didn't realize I had."

Layla is committed, though, to making a change for her two sons and for the little Black girls — and Black women — watching her story, so they will never feel insecure about their hair or skin tone. “It's something that I really want to try to do better at,” she says. “I have sons that have curly hair, and I want them to be able to embrace it and be proud of it.”

In Salt Lake City, Black Americans make up less than 3% of the population, with over 63% being white. Growing up, Layla began to shape her beauty standards based on what she saw.

“When you're here and everyone looks a certain way, your perception of beauty gets morphed in a way,” she shares. “And it's not that white women are not beautiful. Obviously, they're beautiful, but so are Black women. I think everyone's beautiful in their own way. And for a long time, I thought that white was pretty. So, I'm having to retrain my brain and remember that I'm beautiful. My curly hair is beautiful. I don't need to be somebody else, I can be me.”

Layla acknowledges that she hadn't spent a lot of time embracing her Black heritage and even uses the term “whitewashed,” which is often a derogatory put-down that people of color get taunted with if they are not acting according to stereotypes designated to their community.

“Ultimately, when it came down to it, I feel like I spent a long, long time in my life, basically my whole life, trying to be more white. It was almost my comfortability zone,” Layla admits. “Where I grew up, that was my environment. Everyone was white, and I felt like that was what was the right thing to be even though that's not the case. I was just so blindsided for a long time in my life in that way.”

Even making the decision to visit a Black-owned salon was a major shift in Layla’s thinking. “For me, it’s finally embracing that Black side and being like, hey, you can't keep diminishing her," Layla says. "She deserves to shine equally on both sides. And embracing that and just being able to connect with people who get it and understand what it's like to be Black in a community that's predominantly white. It was really empowering. And I loved it.” 

"I was in the midst of my divorce in Season 1, so I was depressed and very sad. And honestly, to be frank, I did not have the mental bandwidth to fight with women."

Once Layla stepped out of that salon chair, her transformation didn’t just end with a new look. Long gone were the days of staying willingly silent on the sidelines; in Season 3, she steps into the ring. She doesn’t back down when confronted by Demi (who’s been dubbed the “villain of the season”) at a party. She confronts Marciano about his part in the cheating scandal with Jessi.

"I'm more vocal," Layla says about her energy in Season 3. "I was in the midst of my divorce in Season 1, so I was depressed and very sad. And honestly, to be frank, I did not have the mental bandwidth to fight with women. So I went mute in Season 2, same thing. I feel like, too, with this hair journey, it's also me stepping into myself and finding my voice in other ways. And I feel like that's a hard thing to do, from just feeling diminished. And I couldn't speak up in rooms, and I didn't have my voice, and being able to find that finally has been amazing. So I hope that the audience is able to see that and be proud of me."

Since this current season of Mormon Wives, Layla’s been embracing the endless possibilities for her hair, thanks to its versatility. “We're doing a little premiere in New York, and I'm going to be trying a wig for the first time, which is going to be really fun,” Layla shares. “And then I think I'm going to try some boho braids. I've been getting the suggestions for years on my social pages, but it's just been so scary to make that jump, because you're so used to what makes you comfortable. But I feel like you only learn what you don't like and do like by actually experiencing it. So I'm gonna try all of it and see what I like and gravitate towards.”

And what’s cultural exploration without digging into some really good food? “I had never had soul food,” Layla shares, “and I tried grits, greens, and all the things for the first time a couple weeks ago. I had never had those things before. My dad didn't necessarily bring us [to his relatives'] home that much when we were little, and I don't remember a lot of it. So it's kind of cool to be able to try that stuff out.”

Layla describes her childhood as “messy,” and one of the reasons she was compelled to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at such a young age. “I ran away to my friends’ houses, and all of them were LDS,” Layla shares. “I was like, okay, all of them seem very happy, and their parents are still married, and everyone just seems so happy. And the one common thing that they all have in common is the church. So me being 16, I was like, huh, if I convert to the church, then I'm gonna have my happy ending, and I’ll get married to somebody one day, and we're gonna have a family, and we're gonna be together forever. That's obviously not what happened, because now I'm divorced at 24... I'm not active anymore, but I think it gave me a lot of hope when I needed it the most.”

Still, a sense of community can be a source of healing, so Layla has also identified her own friend group of women of color with her shared experience. “I actually have found recently a cute group of girls here that are biracial, that understand what it's like to be a minority in a state like Utah, and it's amazing,” she says. “We're able to resonate with each other on those levels that other women can't understand. And that it's not a bad thing that they don't understand. But it's awesome to be able to just kind of have people that are empathetic for things that you feel daily.”

Season 3 feels like Layla's finally been introduced to the Mormon Wives fandom, now that they know the sound of her voice and a bit more of her story. But she’s aware that it’ll take time to undo a lifetime of diminishing herself to fit in. “I wanted to blend in my whole entire life and do anything to almost minimize my differences, and now, the older that I'm getting, I'm realizing that my differences give me strength,” Layla says. “I love to look at it as an advantage that I'm able to inspire young Black girls who maybe grow up in a world like I'm in, that they're beautiful, too, and they can embrace the things that make them different.” 

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is streaming on Hulu.