Whitney Leavitt is making her reality TV exit with the kind of timing only Broadway can sharpen.
The reality star-turned-actress announced on Sunday, during her final performance as Roxie Hart in Chicago, that she is leaving Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives after Season 5. Leavitt has led the Broadway revival in the role since early February, and she used one of Roxie’s media-obsessed moments to fold her own career news into the show.
In video posted by TMZ, Leavitt is seen onstage in character as Roxie while a man presents her with a newspaper. The scene centers on press coverage of Roxie, but Leavitt pauses on one headline and says, “What is that? Whitney Leavitt Announces She’s Leaving ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’?”
The audience responded with cheers and applause, which is not a bad way to file a resignation notice.
She will still appear in Season 5
Leavitt later posted an Instagram video addressing the decision in more detail. She clarified that she is not disappearing from the series immediately and will still be featured throughout Season 5, which is currently in production.
Her departure has been building for some time. Since joining Season 34 of Dancing With the Stars, Leavitt has been open about wanting to move toward a performing career. She had initially planned to leave The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives after Season 2, but returned after Disney offered her the opportunity to audition for Dancing With the Stars in exchange.
That pivot has now become the main plot, professionally speaking. Reality TV gave Leavitt a platform, but Broadway and dance competition exposure have clearly pulled her toward a different lane.
Leavitt had already questioned how long she could do both
Ahead of her Chicago debut, Leavitt told Variety that continuing with the Hulu series was becoming complicated, especially because The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is primarily based in Utah while she was working in New York.
She said the show was “following me while I’m in New York, but I don’t know how that would look for future seasons. It wouldn’t make sense. People want to see the group together. Part of me is like, ‘I can’t do both,’ because both are so time-demanding. Even filming Season 5 has been really hard.”
Asked what she would gain by staying on reality TV, Leavitt was candid about the crossroads.
“I don’t know. Because this is what I wanted, and I wasn’t shy about sharing that. So at what point do you move on to the next journey? [My husband and I] keep going back and forth. That’s where it all started, so it’s kind of sad. But maybe that’s the best thing.”
The Hulu series is already in a turbulent stretch
Leavitt’s exit comes as The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives navigates one of its messiest periods yet.
Season 5 paused production in March amid a domestic violence investigation involving cast member Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, with whom she shares a child. Filming has since resumed, and Paul will not face charges, but the fallout around the series has not exactly quieted down.
Paul had also filmed a season as the star of ABC’s The Bachelorette. That season was pulled from the schedule and remains in limbo. Meanwhile, Paul and Mortensen have continued to draw headlines as mutual restraining orders remain in place against each other.
For Hulu, Leavitt’s departure removes one of the franchise’s more visible breakout figures at a moment when the show is still generating attention, but not always for reasons a network would put in a pitch deck. For Leavitt, the move is more straightforward: she has been saying she wanted a performance career, and now she is choosing the room where that career can actually happen.
