INTERVIEW
Will Macnab| 21/12/2025
It’s easy to frame Jen Affleck as a viral MomTok star or a reality television fixture with millions of followers; she is, after all, a familiar face to many, known for her viral and rather iconic counter top dancing, a main cast member on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and a contestant of 2025’s Dancing With The Stars - the most watched season to date. But she is also a young mother of three navigating faith, marriage, and visibility in full view of the internet, learning, sometimes painfully, what it means to exist as herself rather than who she was expected to be.
To understand Jen Affleck right now is to understand a woman who has lived several lives by the age of 26 and who is no longer interested in shrinking herself to make any of them more palatable.
“Before all of this, I was the type of person who worked really hard to be what everyone else needed me to be: acceptable, likeable, and safely inside the lines,” she tells me early on. “Now, I’m someone who is committed to being fully myself, even when it’s messy, misunderstood, or uncomfortable. It’s helped me find my voice and be more genuine to my authentic self as I grow, mature, and change.”
That shift, from conformity to commitment, sits at the heart of Jen’s story. Her rise was not gradual or private; it unfolded publicly, algorithmically, and at speed. What began as relatable content about motherhood and family life quickly grew into a platform large enough to sustain her household, and eventually into television exposure that removed much of the control social media once afforded her. When I ask her whether being on television changed how she understands herself, she doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely, I’ve learnt so much more about who I am since being on the show than I ever allowed myself to see before,” she says. “Having my life and choices out in the open has forced me to confront what’s real for me, separate from what I was taught to be and it’s pushed me into a much deeper, more honest relationship with my own identity. ”
That confrontation has not been tidy. Jen is clear that growth, especially accelerated growth, comes with discomfort. “There have been growing pains, lessons learnt, and mistakes made,” she adds, “but I feel I have grown more in the last two years than the previous 20 combined.”
With that growth has come exposure, and with exposure, an erosion of privacy that cannot be undone. Jen is thoughtful about the distinction between curated online presence and the reality of unscripted television. “With social media it was easy because you chose what people see, and oftentimes it’s not your real reality,” she explains. “With reality TV you get to see the raw, unedited side of things. And it’s giving people at times too much access to our lives without full context.”
That loss of control can feel destabilising, especially when opinions form faster than understanding. Still, Jen doesn’t frame it as purely negative. “But we have challenged the status quo and made what I feel is an important change in our community and an impact on young moms and women in general,” she writes. The vulnerability, for her, needs to matter. It needs to reach beyond entertainment.
Living under near-constant commentary has required a recalibration of self-worth. Jen is pragmatic about the volatility of public approval. “You can’t get too attached to other people’s opinions of you,” she says. “One day they love you, the next day they hate you, and you haven’t changed at all.” What matters, she has learnt, is internal anchoring. “Take the highs and lows with a grain of salt, and stay grounded in who you know you are and the values you choose to live by. The rest is just noise.”
Cardigan, Threetimes. Bodysuit, LA LU Label. Feather Skirt, Cult Naked. Shoes, Jen’s own. Earrings, HILLBERG & BERK.
Dress, Junie . Bottoms, Spice Rack. Belt, B-low the Belt. Shoes, Life Stride. Earrings, HILLBERG & BERK.
Those values are tested most intensely in motherhood, a role already steeped in pressure before an audience is added. “Feeling like and questioning if you’re good enough is so real,” she admits. “As moms, it’s so easy to put pressure on ourselves and to feed into mom guilt, but when you add the feeling of the whole world watching, it magnifies everything.”
Faith, too, has been a space of tension and reflection and occupies a complicated space in Jen’s life. Raised within a religious framework, she has had to navigate between belief and lived experience in public. “Yes, anytime family, marriage, friendships, and especially religion are involved, it’s a scary and sensitive dynamic to navigate,” she remembers the weight she carried at first. “But I think it’s helped open a lot of important conversations, for the public and for members of our church, about how we live our lives. My first time on television I really felt all that pressure and expectation,” she recalls. Over time, her relationship to that pressure shifted. “After a few seasons, you stop caring as much and realize the people who truly love you already know your heart, and everyone else doesn’t matter.”
The most painful chapter Jen shares is her experience with prenatal depression, a period marked by isolation and misunderstanding. “Prenatal depression can feel so isolating, and for a long time I carried a lot of shame and confusion around what I was feeling,” she says. “By being open about my experience, I hope other moms realize they’re not broken, they’re not alone, and that what they’re going through is real and valid.”
She describes how disorienting it was to suffer quietly while being perceived as thriving. “It was incredibly overwhelming, because on the outside everything looked ‘perfect’, but inside I was drowning and didn’t have the words for what I was going through,” she explains. “Having so many eyes on me while feeling so misunderstood was lonely.” That loneliness became a catalyst. “It also pushed me to finally speak up and name it, in hopes that other women wouldn’t have to suffer in silence the way I did.”
What emerged from that period was her understanding of strength. “It’s taught me that resilience isn’t about being unshakable; it’s about letting yourself break, feeling it fully, and still choosing to stand back up,” she says. “I’ve learnt that asking for help, being vulnerable, and telling the truth about your pain is actually a form of strength, not weakness.”
White Top, Miss Circle. Headpiece’s, Photographer’s own. Tights, Falke.
That philosophy carried her into another unexpected challenge: professional dancing, undertaken shortly after giving birth. “Honestly, it was terrifying and thrilling all at once to step onto the ballroom floor and put my hand in a pro’s and just go for it,” she tells me. “I had to completely let go, trust the process, and be willing to look silly while learning something totally new in front of millions of people.” What surprised her was the emotional release it offered. “In that vulnerability, I found so much growth, joy, and healing, and it ended up being one of the most empowering experiences of my life.”
Despite the scale of her platform and the intensity of recent years, Jen’s sense of joy remains simple. When I ask what makes her heart feel full, she doesn’t talk about views or milestones; she doesn’t reach for spectacle. “What makes me feel most alive is watching my kids learn, grow, and become themselves,” she writes. “After that, anything that lets me create, share my story, and be in nature, whether it’s videography, playing piano, time alone in my little studio, dancing, or trail running in the mountains, lights me up the most.”
Looking forward, there is a sense of expansion rather than escape. “Producing music, singing, and acting, I’ve got some really exciting things in the works,” she shares. And when I ask what she would tell her younger self, her answer feels quietly definitive. “To love yourself in every stage. Each chapter is beautiful and has its own purpose. You’re where you are for a reason; trust that it will all work out, and don’t be afraid to dream big and go after those dreams.”
I keep thinking about how much of Jen Affleck’s story is about learning to stay. Staying with discomfort. Staying with honesty. Staying with herself. It’s a quieter kind of bravery than the kind we usually celebrate. In a culture that rewards polish and certainty, she has chosen honesty and evolution instead. Jen continues to show up not as a finished product, but as someone willing to be seen becoming, even when that process is nonlinear, even when it unfolds under scrutiny. In doing so, she shows that growth can be public and private at once, that faith and doubt can coexist, that motherhood and ambition don’t cancel each other out, and that healing doesn’t follow a straight line. And right now, that feels like the most truthful version of success there is.
Creative Paris Mumpower @parismumpower
Photography Paris Mumpower @parismumpower
Styling Branden Ruiz @branden.ruiz
MUA Elaina Karras @elainakarras_
Hair Styling
HATC Alice Gee @alicesgee
