Miranda Hope Is Exactly Where She Wants To Be

Miranda Hope is done being known as the chill girl. “I’m in my soft villain era,” she tells me, leaning back on a cushy gray couch at Blonde Studios in Chelsea, Manhattan, after her photo shoot. I ask whether this is one of those situations where “villain era” is just a woman vocalizing her needs. “It’s literally me just saying no for once,” she says, laughing. “And then I overthink it for 12 hours.”

The 28-year-old singer and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star is embracing the art of the clapback this year. “I’m at a point in my life where I’m really prioritizing my happiness, my peace, and just being unapologetically myself,” she says. The latest installment of the Hulu reality series showed her setting firm boundaries with her ex Chase McWhorter, and her debut single “FU4THAT,” released in June, is an upbeat country anthem for anyone who’s ever been wronged. It’s a season of saying “thank you, next” for reality TV’s favorite cool girl, and she’s happy to bring her supporters (she’s got a lot of them) along for the ride.

“I’m an Aries, and I’ve been stepping more into that,” Hope says, lounging in what she calls “an early 2000s, edgy Western vibe”: a knitted, sand-colored crop top and jeans, paired with gray mesh heels she swears are “so comfy,” even for a day spent exploring the city (though probably not for her favorite NYC pastime: riding e-bikes around Central Park).

She’s in town for a few days of events and appearances, including Page Six’s Virtual Reali-Tea Awards, where she was nominated for “Best Dynamic Duo” alongside bestie and castmate Layla Taylor. (The award went to Summer House’s Lindsay Hubbard and her daughter, Gemma.) Hope wore head-to-toe vintage YSL, with new boyfriend Kaleb Winterburn on her arm for their second red-carpet appearance, following their debut the night before at the 41st Annual Great Sports Legends Dinner. It’s a glamorous life for a girl from Idaho who used to sing to her stuffed animals and dream of becoming a star. “Reality TV wasn’t really on my vision board as a 10-year-old,” Hope says, “but being a singer was.”

Setting boundaries doesn’t make you a bad person. You can still be kind while standing up for yourself.

The path to getting there wasn’t exactly what she pictured. Hope grew up in the Mormon church and moved to Utah for college, shelving her childhood pop-star dreams temporarily to become an ultrasound tech. Two years later, she switched to esthetician school and promptly married McWhorter, whom she met when he slid into her DMs after returning from his Latter-day Saints mission. In 2020, as a young mom raising her baby during lockdown, Hope started posting on TikTok about her daily life and joined a community of #MomTok influencers, including Taylor Frankie Paul.

By 2024, Hope had more than 1 million TikTok followers and nearly 200,000 more on Instagram. She was approached to appear on a new reality show about Paul and her MomTok friends, set to debut later that year. But because of several personal factors, including a pending divorce from McWhorter, Hope passed on the opportunity. “When I was trying to make the decision for Season 1, something didn’t feel right to me about it,” she recalls.

When Secret Lives of Mormon Wives aired that September, Hope realized she had missed the chance to share her side of the story. She was part of the infamous 2022 swinging scandal involving Paul, which the show covered extensively — but without joining the cast, she couldn’t clarify the extent or context of her involvement. “I felt such a pull to do it, to finally share my reality, because I felt like I never really got that opportunity. Anytime I tried, it wasn’t necessarily understood or portrayed correctly,” she says. So when producers came knocking for Season 2 that fall, she took the leap and signed on. “I went into it with very low expectations because of apprehension about the fallout from the swinging scandal,” she says. “That phase of my life was so traumatizing… and I didn’t want to spiral that same way.” Plus, it wasn’t exactly a warm welcome. “I knew that a lot of the girls didn’t want me to be part of it.”

What followed was “like walking into the lion’s den,” especially with a cast that had overnight become celebrities. The sudden attention was overwhelming — Hope shot up to 1 million Instagram followers and 2.5 million on TikTok, and saw her name in a slew of tabloid headlines revisiting the soft-swinging debacle and its aftermath. Still, viewers’ response to Season 2 was incredibly affirming. “I was reading comments and DMs, and it was the first time in three or four years that I felt like I was being understood,” she says.

I just want to give [past me] a hug and be like, 'You’ll get there. I promise you’ll get there.’

Hope looks back on that version of herself with empathy. “Growing up in a very religious environment, I felt like there was a need to uphold a certain expectation, and that weighed really heavily on me,” she says. “It played a big role in my people-pleasing tendencies, and feeling like I needed to be the good girl and the one that’s put together. That led to the suppression of my truest, most authentic side and character.” Through lots of trial and error, she’s learned to trust herself and drown out the noise of other people’s perceptions. “I’ve realized that I can’t control everyone’s opinions, and that setting boundaries doesn’t make you a bad person. You can still be kind while standing up for yourself.”

Now that she’s finally the person she wants to be, she can see her past motivations clearly. “I just want to give [past me] a hug and be like, 'You’ll get there. I promise you’ll get there.’”

Two years and four seasons later, Hope has become an essential part of the show’s DNA. Dealing with MomTok’s never-ending drama isn’t always easy. “Even though we’re sharing our real lives, there are times when you’re like, ‘I don’t want to have to be around this person,” she says. “When things get sticky, I like to say that ‘When I take off my mic, that’s my clock-out. When I put it back on, that’s my clock-in.’”

It’s especially frustrating when people in the friend group try to cross her — like when Jessi Draper made out with McWhorter, or when her longtime friend Shinia Powell was revealed to have hooked up with him, too. “It’s like exposure therapy, because in what other world are you put into these situations where you’re prompted to confront issues?” Hope says. (She and Draper are “cordial,” and the fallout from Draper’s actions is expected to play out in Season 6.) “I don’t always have to remain so poised or be the ‘good girl.’ It’s OK for me to be outspoken sometimes. I’ve found that side of myself, too.”

Hope is often called the show’s “voice of reason.” (She credits her calm to watching her parents defuse fights among her and her three sisters.) Still, she jokes that not everyone sees her that way. In Season 5, she laid down the law with her ex about his legal issues and dating fiascos, delivering the iconic line “If you’re disrespecting me, you’re cut off.” Hope says she sometimes worries that people think she is too soft on McWhorter. “I never want my positive co-parent relationship to be confused with enabling,” she says. “It’s no secret that I don’t condone everything that Chase does, but as a mom who loves her kids very much, I probably do let him ‘get away’ with things from time to time. I want to live a happy, peaceful life and not have to be arguing with my co-parent all the time.”

She’s happy to share those conversations publicly, even when they’re difficult. “So many women DM me saying ‘How did you get the courage to leave?’ or ‘You’ve been such an inspiration to me’ or ‘You're the reason that I stopped going back to my toxic ex,’” she says. “It means so much to be able to be an example to women in that way, because I think we’ve all been in relationships that could be considered toxic.”

Hope is also vocal on politics and social issues, often clarifying in the comments section that she and Taylor don’t share some of their cast’s conservative views. She has spoken openly about autoimmune diseases as a women’s health issue (Hope has Hashimoto’s) and proudly supported Taylor in her coming-out journey this year. “I share incredibly different opinions from a lot of people around me, but I don’t care. I follow my gut, I follow my intuition, and I know what my morals are,” she says. She urges more online creators to do the same. “They call it an influencer, right? If you want to influence, I think you should educate yourself and formulate opinions so you can be an example for your audience.”

Things have been falling apart, but I have faith in us.

These days, she’s spending lots of time with Taylor and her new girlfriend (“She has grown so much and evolved so much, and I’m so happy for her”), plus Winterburn, whom Hope recently started dating more seriously after meeting at Stagecoach last year. “He’s very much my type — a country boy and just manly and down to earth,” Hope says of the Montana Boyz star. “He’s probably the closest that I’ve ever dated to what my actual type is, which is hilarious because I feel he’s so opposite from my ex.”

She’s upgrading her life and her standards, as her unapologetically brash debut single shows. “FU4THAT” came about through a collaboration between Hope and songwriter Ruston Kelly — who, coincidentally, is McWhorter’s cousin. Was it weird to write a song about a misbehaving ex with a family member of one of the well-known exes in question? Hope says it was surprisingly easy. “[Ruston is] a very sarcastic, funny guy, and Chase is very sarcastic, too. He thought it was pretty funny. I think he also knew that Chase would get a kick out of it,” she says. (McWhorter has, indeed, been supporting the song.)

Next up in Hope’s discography is her new single “Subject to Change,” coming out Nov. 13. It’s a “very sweet” track not directly inspired by her boyfriend, though “he does fit the mold.” “I’m learning that it's OK to grow, change your mind, and not have everything figured out,” she says about the track’s themes. “We’re constantly evolving, and I think there’s something really freeing about embracing that instead of feeling like you have to stay the same person forever.”

She’s hoping to release an EP or album eventually. “Right now, music has been the priority, and it has been so fun just being able to get creative with it and explore that further,” she says. “I’m so excited for everybody to hear the new song, and then see where it goes from there.”

As for Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, she’s looking forward to more “lighthearted” energy in Season 6, which is currently filming. “People will see a lot more heartwarming moments, and I think that's something that we can all collectively agree after last season that we are in need of,” she says. Despite multiple cast exits, including Paul, Whitney Leavitt, and Mikayla Matthews, Hope is confident MomTok can still survive this. “Sometimes you’ve got to burn something to the ground in order to rebuild it,” she says. “Things have been falling apart, but I have faith in us.” She’s happy with her role in the friend group. “As it stands right now, I’m in good standing with most of the women, and I have a good relationship with so many of them.”

One thing she won’t do is step into the role of MomTok’s leader. “Sometimes people will ask us, ‘Who would want to be queen bee?’ I think maybe there are a couple girls that would want to, but I’m like, ‘I’m all set.’ I’ll ride in the back. I love being a passenger princess.”

Her latest era shows she’s ready to speak her mind, no holds barred. “It takes a lot to ruffle my feathers,” she says. “And the thing is, I might not have this massive blow-up reaction, but I will cut you off.”

In other words: f*ck you for that.