How Mormon Wives ‘ Mayci Neeley Navigated Tragic Death of Her Son’s Dad

Originally appeared on E! Online

By the time Mayci Neeley appeared on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, she’d already faced some of the most difficult chapters of her life, including the death of her boyfriend Arik Mack.

As the Hulu star shared in her memoir Told You So, released Oct. 7, Arik was killed in a car accident in March 2015 when they were both 19 years old. At the time of the crash, Arik was texting Mayci, who was 14 weeks pregnant with their son Hudson, apologizing for cheating on her.

“The day my boyfriend dies, he texts me to say he’s sorry,” Mayci recalled in Told You So. “He loves me. He’ll never forgive himself for hurting me while I’m pregnant with his baby. Arik’s text ends with a typo. A singular letter J.”

It wasn’t until a few hours later, while scrolling on Instagram, that she learned of Arik’s death. According to a March 2015 article published by local Utah outlet KSL, citing highway patrol, a Honda Element “crossed the center divider,” hitting a westbound semitruck head-on. Arik died at the scene.

The tragedy was one of the hardest topics for Mayci to write about in her memoir.

“I do still have that grief,” she told E! News in an exclusive interview, “and it’s a part of me, regardless of writing it or not.”

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“Every March, which is the month he passed away,” Mayci noted, “there just feels like there’s an extra bit of heaviness and gloom in my life.”

Since Arik’s passing, Hudson has kept Mayci moving forward.

“I’ve always called him my saving grace, because I don’t think I’d be here without him,” Mayci shared. “I became a more motivated, driven person.”

At the time of Hudson’s birth, Mayci—who married Jacob Neeley in 2018 and has since welcomed daughters Harlow and Charli—was preparing to be a single mom.

“I wanted him to grow up and be proud of me,” the BYU alum said, “that I accomplished all these things and he did it with me, by my side, graduating college and finishing my tennis career.”

“When I graduated, I made sure that he was there in the audience, and that he was a witness to a lot of my tennis matches and all the things,” she added. “Because I want him to see these things growing up and being like, nothing can stop me either. My mom can do it, I can do it.”

Told You So is available now.

Keep reading to meet the entire cast of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives…

Taylor Frankie Paul

Whitney Leavitt

Layla Taylor

Demi Engemann

Jessi Ngatikaura

Jen Affleck

Mikayla Matthews

Mayci Neeley