How TikTok’s ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ landed on Hulu, with Select Management Group’s Danielle Pistotnik

The reality show stars a set of TikTok creators who could have just as easily adapted their short-form content into long-form videos on YouTube. Or maybe not. 

“I don’t think a YouTube channel would have done it justice. I think it would have felt like a sloppy ‘Real Housewives,’” Danielle Pistotnik, a talent manager at Select Management Group and executive producer on “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” said on the latest Digiday Podcast episode. 

“I just don’t think that it would have worked on YouTube or worked digitally long-form, especially now that I’m working on it and seeing how many people and how many resources you need to actually create a good reality show.”

But that doesn’t mean traditional entertainment companies were so convinced that creator-led shows work. When Pistotnik first pitched “Secret Lives,” she was able to tout the attached talent’s collective 20 million followers as a built-in audience. But no one bit. It wasn’t until a scandal in 2022 involving one of the creators attracted attention from national news outlets, audiences — and Hulu.

“When that happened, Russell Jay[-Staglik] from Jeff Jenkins Productions — who’s a good friend of Lisa [Filipelli] who is the other EP at Select on this project with me — called Lisa and was like, ‘Hulu’s looking for these girls,’” Pistotnik said.

Two years later, “Secret Lives” premiered on the Disney-owned streamer to become the most-watched season premiere episode of a reality show on Hulu at the time. Its second season premiered this May and received 5 million views within its first five days.

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity.

On the initial pitch process

We were taking it out to really good production companies. There were some [TV] networks that came to us with interest that maybe weren’t what we wanted. And then some that we were taking it out to that we didn’t even hear back from. 

On the initial industry response

I could tell you the feedback that we got, which was pretty across the board. Literally, I did an order yesterday to get this feedback from one of them specifically on a throw pillow in my house because it’s the biggest “I told you so” of my life. But everyone just said they didn’t see this concept sustaining past one episode of television.

On Hulu entering the fray

We didn’t even take it out to them in the beginning because I don’t think we thought they would be as interested. But they were stoked. And within a year — which sounds like a long time but it’s really not —we had a pilot.

On potential future paths

We did it a lot more structured and a lot more like typical Hollywood. But looking back, if I have another project that I really believe in [but] that people don’t believe in, I would just find the money and get a pilot [made]. That’s all that really matters is just like get the pilot done.