Aspyn Ovard on Her Divorce, Being in a Throuple and Joining ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Universe: ‘I Hope People Can Understand Me a Little Bit Better’

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains major spoilers for “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” now streaming on Hulu.

Not even 15 years of living life online could have prepared Aspyn Ovard for the release of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County.”

The show, a spinoff of Hulu’s uber-popular, ever-controversial Utah-based franchise, hit small screens everywhere on Nov. 12, in which Ovard stars alongside other cast members including Bobbi Althoff, Avery Woods, Salomé Andrea, McCall DaPron and Jordan McClanahan. But a week before its release, despite all those years and millions of eyeballs watching her every move (first on YouTube, where she was then known by the username HauteBrilliance, then on Instagram and now on TikTok), the 30-year-old was feeling anxious about the unknowns that come with putting everything out there on reality TV.

There are the obvious considerations: How will those fans — and a new audience — react to her life? “It’s so different than social media, so I really have like no idea what to expect,” she tells Variety over Zoom from a West Hollywood hotel room. Given that she’s spent the better half of her life as an influencer, major milestones have been well-marked; among other things, fans have watched the Utah-born creator meet, date and marry — all by 19 — Parker Ferris, and welcome three daughters (Cove, Lola and Elle), by 27. In 2024, right after her youngest was born, Ovard filed for divorce, a move that shocked those who’d come of age watching the high-school sweethearts.

Then, newly single for the first time in her adult life, Ovard met Bri Davis. Fast forward two years, and she’s now in a relationship with both Davis and Davis’ husband, Billy — a throuple, as they call themselves. In the show’s first episode, we meet said throuple, all of whom appear really, truly, deeply in love, despite Ferris’ disapproval. (“You guys are clout chasing!” Ferris tells Billy and Bri in a tense early scene. “It’s so obvious.”)

And yet, despite Ferris’ objection to the whole situation, he remains committed to co-parenting with Ovard, which brings them to a heated couples therapy session in which audiences learn something they’ve kept completely offline: Their daughter has terminal cancer. “Everything happened so out of nowhere,” Ovard explains in the episode, never naming which daughter is sick. “One day she was OK, and the next day she wasn’t.”

Given the sensitive nature of the situation, reps for Hulu asked that Ovard not be asked any questions — tangential or direct — about her children and their health. But even so, it’s clear that revealing what Ovard has been privately dealing with for the past three years is what’s causing her nervousness ahead of the show’s release, as much as she appreciates how carefully production has handled her story, she says.

“The internet has kind of been my last piece of normalcy for my life, so saying goodbye to that is definitely very life-changing for me. I don’t really know how I’m gonna navigate it,” she says. “I literally live day by day, minute by minute a lot of the time, so I’ll just be figuring it out as I go. I’ve already been through so much, so I know I’ll survive.”

Below, Ovard spoke with Variety about sharing her life, her connection to Mormonism, her current status with Ferris and that fight with McCall and Jordan.

Let’s start with your decision to do this show. You’ve been sharing your life online for so many years — is this the first time the opportunity to do a reality show has come up? Did you have any hesitations?

I’m trying to remember if I was ever approached for the Utah show when I lived there. I think this is probably the first time, especially for something in California, that I’ve been approached for. I probably said in a Q&A years ago that I would never do reality TV, but, obviously, you never know where life’s going to take you. I’m such a big fan of the Utah show, and literally have been since day one. Like, I love those girls and have seen them be able to do such incredible things with such an incredible business opportunity. Especially as the breadwinner and provider for my family, it was an obvious yes — to do something new career-wise, and then be able to build up these friendships even more and have a better sense of community in Orange County. It felt like the perfect next step for me.

When the show was announced, there was so much audience reaction over who was or was not Mormon. Do you want to briefly set the record straight on your connection to Mormonism?

Technically, I am baptized into the Mormon Church. I don’t identify with being Mormon, but I’ve been to the Mormon Church a million times. There’s so much Mormon influence in my life, even just with getting married at 19 and having kids young — the culture has shaped me so much, whether I like that or not.

I think there’s so much [the cast] can gain from each other. I mean, everyone is so different, and especially the girls who are active Mormons, there’s so much that they can learn from us girls who are very progressive and very liberal, and have been able to have so much life experience and been able to see the world thanks to our careers on social media. I’m really excited for those girls to also be able to join in on that and be able to provide for their families, and also just get a bigger worldview from everything that we’re able to do. But even though I’m not a Mormon wife, I feel like I definitely have a place on the show, and I think it makes sense that I’m there.

Now, I obviously have to ask about the throuple. When did the topic of Billy and Bri being on the show come up?

When I was initially approached about the show, I didn’t want to share my relationship. I wasn’t publicly posting about anything. We’d only been together for a year, and they had just moved [to OC]. But again, it’s just such an incredible opportunity, so we talked about it a lot. I could have done the show alone, but I think that there’s just been so many pieces of my life that I haven’t shared for the last two years that it kind of was just — there was gonna be a point where had to put everything out there in a way, and I didn’t know what that would look like for me, or how I would handle that, or just really anything about it. But we talked about it a lot, and did obviously end up deciding to just go all in. We’re so good at just disconnecting: like, that’s work, and then we have like our real life and our relationship. And as much as we were so open with everything, it is nice to be in a very stable relationship where we could handle something like this and feel confident about going into this insane opportunity.

There’s a lot more Bri on the show than Billy — is that just a byproduct of it being about “Mormon Wives”?

Yeah, I feel like not a lot of husbands were really on it. There was definitely stuff with Billy that we filmed. I mean, everyone filmed stuff, and it gets cut. But Billy also does work nine-to-five, so he didn’t have as much flexibility with filming, but it also made sense for Bri to be at more things than him, like the girls’ trips. The girls love Bri and Billy, but it makes sense to bring Bri around a little more often than Billy.

Do you care that people call you guys “The Throuple”?

No, nothing’s that deep. It’s OK.

In that same vein, we see Parker interact with all three of you early on, and I feel like fans of yours might be surprised by how tense that dynamic was. He also points out that he’s very skeptical of their motives. Where do you all stand today?

Obviously, it’s a lot to go through a divorce, and then to have your ex have a new relationship, and not only that, but a different type of relationship, and to have people around your kids. Our life just is so sensitive. It makes sense that he’s very protective of our girls and even of me.

But luckily, we are in a much better spot. I think he just needed time. We’re literally going on vacation together next week, when the show comes out. I want us all to be able to get away: me, Billy, Bri, Parker, the girls. It’s nice to be in a place where we can handle something like that now.

Do you feel the show helped you guys resolve some of those tensions, or do you think it would have happened regardless?

I think it would have happened without the show. I really think that the answer was just time. But there are opportunities that come up from the show, because we’re like, “OK, we need to have these conversations,” and do things together, like the beach dinner and couples therapy. All of that stuff is a part of the show, but it’s also just part of our real lives. But I think with time and just seeing the consistency and stability that they’ve been able to provide for me, and also for our kids, he’s come around more.

In terms of that couples therapy scene, it’s another tense moment, and I wonder what it’s like to watch that back now.

I was able to see a few things as they were editing — anything that was very sensitive, they let me have a hand in helping craft it and to make sure I was comfortable. Production was very, very good to me with my story and just the sensitivity of everything that I have going on. So as hard as it is to watch those scenes back, I’ve watched them a handful of times now and have seen a couple different versions of everything. But it definitely is hard to watch that back. It’s just a lot. But I’m grateful that we’re in a little bit of a better place now than we were back then.

We also learn that the “10-year” secret in your marriage, which you alluded to on social media, was Parker drinking behind your back. Why choose to share that now, and how do you think people will respond?

I think people will be underwhelmed by it. People, especially on TikTok, have really, really crazy theories. But I think that when you get to see the full context of my life and what I’ve been through the last few years, it makes sense why this was so painful to me. When I learned all of that, it was two months after my dad died from alcoholism, so it was very earth-shattering to me to learn about those things that went on and I wasn’t aware. And especially friends knowing, and his family. It just completely changes the way you look at your life and what went on in your marriage. It was something very sensitive to me, and I think people would have been disappointed if it wasn’t included. But Parker himself was willing to talk about it, and with me sharing a lot of the traumatic things I’ve been through in the last couple of years, that was a big piece of it.

Speaking of divorce, we see Jen Affleck confide in you about her marital issues. And as of yesterday, she has now filed for divorce. What was your reaction to seeing that, and how did your relationship with Jen evolve over the course of the show?

I think Jen is so brave. It’s really difficult to make the decision to get divorced, and especially when pregnant. I mean, I technically filed right after I had my baby, but I was going through all of it while pregnant. I just feel for Jen so much, and relate to her so much. I remember how lonely it was going through my divorce, and I was going through so much else at the time too. It was just like unbearable agony. And so, if I can help Jen out in any way by being there for her, I’m so happy to do that and so honored to get to be a support person to her.

Who would you say you’re closest with now in the group? You seemed to have a good non-Mormon crew going on with Salomé, Avery and Bobbi.

I’m definitely in a good place with everyone, but I would say I am probably the closest with Avery. We’ve been able to develop such a close friendship — we’ve been friends for years, but especially throughout filming, when you’re getting to actually see each other and hang out more, it definitely brought us a lot closer. She’s been such a good support person for me, and I’m so grateful for that.

I feel like people are going to love her on this show.

I know! I’ve told her that the whole time. Like, she’s such a good friend. She comes across so well. She’s so funny. She’s such an important piece of the show, and the friend group as a whole. She’s such a good mediator.

Another tense moment was when the group was in Las Vegas, and you have a back-and-forth with McCall and Jordan about whether they support your relationship. What are your feelings about that whole situation now?

It was bigger than just whether they support me in my relationship. It’s gay rights as a whole, and the Mormon Church has a very clear stance that they do not recognize or perform same-sex marriages — you can check their website. They are not supportive of the LGBTQIA+ community, so it’s very interesting to have to navigate having devout Mormon friends who are saying, “No, but I support you, and I support your relationship.” I’m very black and white.

McCall and Jordan have been supportive of me, but to me it was a bigger issue. They also cut around politics in the show. Like, it was a much bigger conversation. So the only thing hard to watch back is how much of that gets cut out, because I look a little crazy and I’m a little heated, but that is just a hill I will die on. I’m very fiery, and so I’m just like, “I will fight you on this.”

In the conversation, they wanted you to say you support the Mormon Church. Do you feel like that was fair of them to do?

They were trying to say that they support me, so I was like, “OK, so say that you support gay rights.” The conversation was cut down quite a bit. So it looks like they say it pretty quickly, but I mean — I’m very clear with my stance on the church, and them wanting me to say something that I didn’t believe in felt like two opposite things. I was trying to get them to say something they say they do believe in, whereas they wanted me to say something that is not true. So those did feel like different things to me.

Back to the Billy and Bri of it all. You mentioned in the show that you’ve lost friends because of the relationship. It seems like pretty much all the women were totally cool with it. Is there anything we didn’t see with that, or did it all go smoother than anticipated?

When you know the full picture of my life, it’s easier to understand a lot of the decisions that I make, even though other friends also have known the full picture and not decided to stick around and be a part of my village. I do feel lucky that everyone was, you know, very accepting. I mean, anytime I show up anywhere and I don’t have Bri with me, they’re like, “Where is she? Why didn’t you bring her?” Or if it’s a big group thing, Billy. Everybody just loves them and has been willing to get to know them, and I think that’s something I didn’t really experience with other people who are not in my life anymore. I’m just grateful that they were open-minded to that different type of relationship, especially the more conservative girls, because I know that that is something that they’ve like really never been around. So all I can ask is that they’re open-minded, and they have been, and they’ve been great.

When you talk about the people who didn’t approve of the relationship, with everything else going on in your life, it seems like that, in comparison, wouldn’t be a big deal.

You would think.

Do you feel relieved at all or nervous about the show coming out?

I definitely feel very nervous. As much as I really appreciate the way that production handled my story, and I know that they were so careful in crafting it, I think it’s obvious why I would be very anxious for the show to come out, and I think that the internet has just kind of been like my last piece of normalcy in my life, so saying goodbye to that is definitely very life-changing for me. I don’t really know how I’m gonna navigate it, but I’ll definitely be taking some time off to just try and figure that out. And again, I literally live day by day, minute by minute, a lot of the time, so I’ll just be figuring it out as I go. I’ve already been through so much, so I know I’ll survive and be fine. But it is definitely an anxiety-inducing event for me for this to come out. It’s so different than social media, so I really have like no idea what to expect.

What do you hope your audience takes away from watching you, or any of the women, on the show?

I hope people can understand me a little bit better. It’s a really interesting feeling because I’ve never really cared about that, and as much as I’ve shared, I’ve been very careful with what I’ve shared, and I’ve always had the amount of privacy that I wanted. Really, for the past, like, 16 years. It’s a very new feeling for me to hope that people understand me. But I think in sharing so much, I just hope that the world can see a more full picture of my life and understand me a little bit better from the last few years.