Avery Woods Gives Update After “Vulnerable” Photo Drama On Mormon Wives: OC

Like its Utah mothership, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County delivers plenty of interpersonal drama. But for Avery Woods, one castmate’s actions crossed a line — even for reality TV.

In the first season of Hulu’s new spinoff (streaming now), an off-screen friend tells Jordan McClanahan that Woods has an OnlyFans account. After discussing it with McCall DaPron and Mayci Neeley and expressing concern that Woods’ photos might affect the group’s “image,” McClanahan confronts Woods, who counters that her account has been deactivated for several years. “I posted four photos. They were not nude,” she tells the camera. “But why she chose to bring this up in a public way in order to embarrass me is just a little bit shocking.”

McClanahan maintains her claims that there’s actual nudity, and says that her castmate’s digital footprint could become a “scandal” that — as she puts it in a confessional — “affect our worthiness to have a calling and our overall activeness in our church.”

Woods is hurt by this characterization of her past, telling the camera that it makes her feel “vulnerable” as a mom who financially provides for her family. “I have done so much work in my life to change and better myself,” she says. “So her coming at me and judging me, when I’ve been nothing but accepting of her past, is just a slap in the face.”

Castmate Bobbi Althoff later lets Woods know that there’s a “random website” posting nude photos purportedly of Woods, but that aren’t actually her, with the women wondering at one point whether some might be AI-generated.

Woods and McClanahan have another conversation — and though McClanahan says she’s sorry, she also tells a tearful Woods she doesn’t “need to be sad” about it.

“I don’t need to be sad about it? How the f*ck would you feel if someone was sending around naked photos of you?” Woods says, reminding her castmate: “This is my real f*cking life. It’s not just for cameras.”

Ultimately, Woods walks away feeling hurt and later tells the camera, “I have zero desire to see her ever again.” She doesn’t attend the group’s intervention for Madison Bontempo, not wanting her tension with McClanahan to detract from the matter at hand.

So, where do the women stand today? “I think we’re wanting to move forward,” Woods tells Bustle. “There’s definitely some conversations that are still going to be had. But I do find that it’s important to have those off-camera.”

Woods notes that if the show is renewed for a second season, “that’s something that we can talk about and move forward. But again, when I joined this group, I was looking for real connections and friends.”

Reflecting on the conflict, she adds, “It’s just such a vulnerable topic, and a topic that I was blindsided by, and so I just wasn’t mentally prepared for it.” Looking ahead, though, “it will be resolved.”