Taylor Frankie Paul FINALLY speaks out after Bachelorette cancellation amid domestic violence investigations
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Taylor Frankie Paul finally broke her silence on Thursday after her season of The Bachelorette was unceremoniously canceled.
The 27-year-old Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives star has kept a low profile ever since it was revealed earlier this month that police were investigating her over allegations that she assaulted her ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, in late February.
Paul addressed her 2.5 million followers with two posts in her Instagram Stories that thanked her friends while only alluding to the controversies swirling around her.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Paul for additional comment but has yet to receive a response.
Paul kept the spotlight off herself by simply posting a photo of a road curving along a mountain range and dotted with pine trees as the sun beamed down.
'Thank you 🙏 to every check-in, call, prayer sent,' she wrote on her photo. '
Fired Bachelorette star Taylor Frankie Paul broke her silence on Thursday as she's reportedly being investigated for domestic violence; pictured in November 2024 in Nashville, Tenn.
Paul kept the spotlight off herself by simply posting a photo of a road curving along a mountain range and dotted with pine trees as the sun beamed down. She thanked her friends for making sure that she was OK, calling it a 'life line'
'Your unconditional kindness and check in can be someone's life line,' she added.
Paul didn't get any closer to explicitly addressing her scuttled Bachelorette season or the legal issues she's facing in her second post of the night, but she suggested she was turning to her faith amid controversy.
She posted a picture of orange, yellow and white flowers in a vase on a desk, with what appeared to be a large bible with her name printed on the cover in gold script resting next to them.
Paul also had This Was Meant To Find You: When You Needed It Most by Charlotte Freeman photogenically placed in front of her.
She capped off the photo with a notebook open to a page that only said 'Gratitude' at the top, as if she planned to fill it out.
'Ending every single night with gratitude even if it's just ONE glimmer,' Paul wrote over her photo.
Earlier on Thursday, it was revealed that Paul could potentially face new legal problems as a district attorney considers whether to file charges against her over an alleged domestic violence incident from February.
According to Rich Ferguson, the chief of police in Draper, Utah, has now passed on a case to the Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill.
Paul wrote that she was focused on gratitude in a follow-up snap in her Instagram Stories, but again she didn't expliictly address the controversy
Paul's fate hangs in the balance as the Draper City Prosecutor has submitted her case to the Salt Lake County District Attorney, the Draper Police Chief told TMZ on Thursday; Paul is pictured March 15 in Hollywood
Chief Ferguson told TMZ on Thursday that it's now up to the Salt Lake County DA to determine if charges will be filed against Paul, 27.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Draper Police Department and Paul for comment, but has not yet received responses.
Paul's ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, has filed for a protective order in Utah, citing an alleged domestic violence incident that took place in February 2026, which is now at the center of decisions on whether to charge Paul.
Mortensen had accused the reality star of choking him, before hitting him and shoving him into a window.
Even if the Salt Lake County DA ultimately decides not to file charges against Paul, she's not yet out of the woods, as Chief Ferguson told TMZ that the city prosecutor could still advance the case.
Mortensen had accused the reality star of choking him, before hitting him and shoving him into a window.
The situation is particularly precarious for Paul, as she is still on probation from a 2023 incident in which she pleaded guilty in abeyance to aggravated assault in August 2023.
In exchange, four other charges that had been filed against her were dropped with prejudice, meaning they can not be refiled in the future.
According to the Draper Police Chief, the Salt Lak DA will decide whether to file charges against Paul over her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen's allegations of domestic violence from February; Mortensen is pictured January 24 in Park City, Utah
Even if the DA decides not to charge Paul, the city prosecutor could still advance the case against her. She's in a precarious position because she's still on probation after her 2023 domestic violence conviction
In a statement, Mortensen's representative said that 'his number one priority' is protecting their son, Ever.
'[Mortensen] knew there was a possibility [the alleged domestic assault] could come out, but he was not going to be the one to proactively do that because he has always wanted a decent relationship with Taylor,' the statement said.
'It's been really hard to achieve that, but he wants to co-parent well.'
According to the filing, the February altercation occurred at Paul’s home, with their two-year-old son Ever present.
Mortensen claims that a verbal argument escalated into a physical confrontation where Paul allegedly choked him.
He claims he had to physically remove her hands from his neck, after which she shoved him into a window and struck him.
Describing the situation as ‘chaotic’ and ‘frightening,’ Mortensen says their son woke up from the commotion, which included Paul screaming and yelling, according to TMZ.
In the petition, Mortensen also referenced Paul’s previous 2023 arrest for assault, where she was accused of throwing chairs at him.
Newly released police body-worn camera footage shows the disgraced Bachelorette star arguing with a police officer while visibly intoxicated before her 2023 arrest. Paul admitted to throwing metal chairs at then-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen
As part of his filing, he has requested temporary custody of Ever and asked for Paul to be prohibited from drinking or using drugs during her parenting time.
Paul is reportedly in legal jeopardy over the allegedly domestic violence incident from last month even as her 2023 arrest has come into clearer focus.
Police body-worn camera footage that was released earlier this week and obtained by TMZ features previously unseen portions of bodycam footage from the night of the arrest that show her arguing with a police officer while visibly intoxicated.
At one point, the tearful reality star even stopped to call her father for help as the clearly frustrated officer tried to interview her, and she seemed to taunt him by asking, 'What is your job, exactly?'
The video was shot shortly before Paul's arrest, after she admitted to throwing metal chairs at her then-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Paul and Mortensen to request comment.
Paul's agitated demeanor is clear from the start of the new portion of the video, which begins in the midst of a tense interview on her front porch, while Mortensen is being interviewed inside her home.
'I'm getting curious why I'm outside my house and he's inside. Bring him out here and me inside. This is my house,' she says while slurring her words.
The officer said he had her on the front porch to get some air and calm down, but Paul marched inside and said she wanted Mortensen to go outside so she could be inside her home
Paul claims Mortensen pushed her as she sobs on and off, but the officer tries to get her to calm down, as he is waiting for the primary officer to interview her when he's finished speaking to Mortensen; Paul and Mortensen are pictured together
The officer, whose voice stays calm, offers to do just that 'in a minute.'
'We were just hoping that a little bit of breathing cold air would be nice — hey, hey, hey!' he continues as Paul turns and opens her front door while he's mid-sentence.
She marched into the house, where Mortensen was speaking to another officer, and interrupted them.
'You're upset, I'm upset. Get out of my house,' she tells Mortensen wearily.
He says something indistinct to her that isn't fully caught on the bodycam audio, and Paul appears to parrot his words to him.
'No "Taylor OK." Get out of my house,' she says as she and Mortensen walk up face-to-face near her kitchen.
The officer interviewing her sounds frustrated by the interruption, but Paul ignores him and grabs a glass from a cabinet to get some water.
'Hey, Taylor, when I told you how this was going down, OK, we're trying to be kind right now and just find out what's going on, but if you stop listening to the things we're saying —' he says as Paul whips out her cell phone and begins dialing.
The officer urges Paul to calm down and lower her voice so as not to wake up her children. She interrupts him repeatedly and gets a glass of water and calls her father, asking him to come observe
'[O]K, you're good, no worries, you're being nice, I get it,' she says over the officer as she scrolls through her phone, apparently to find a number.
'He's pushed me — the man — in my garage, to my kid's stuff [sic],' Paul appears to say as the officer continues trying to speak to her.
'Your children are here, and you need to stop yelling,' he instructs her in a more forceful tone.
'You're good, understandable, you're right,' she agrees absentmindedly as she puts the phone to her ear to make a call.
'And so when I asked you not to make a phone call right now, and you're doing it...' he continues, before Paul asks if that's 'illegal,' to which he responds that it's not.
Paul suddenly becomes tearful as she says on the phone, 'Dad, please come to my house.
'Dakota pushed me in my garage, and the police are saying that I can't talk about it,' she gasps.
'No, that's not what we're saying at all,' the officer tells her calmly, before urging her to 'take deep breaths' because she's allegedly 'very intoxicated.'
Paul, who slurs her words and calls a breathalyzer a 'blezaryzer' before correcting herself, claims she's only at a 'two out of 10' level of intoxication; publicity still for The Bachelorette
He urges her again to keep her voice down because her children are trying to sleep.
'Upstairs? With the white noise?' she responds as she points upward, before the officer reminds her that one of her children is sleeping on the sofa just feet away from them.
After he asks her to 'chill,' she interrupts to ask, 'Are you married, with kids?'
'That is irrelevant,' he replies, but Paul says, 'It's not,' because that information informs how she feels in the moment.
'My personal life is not terribly relevant right now,' he continues. 'My job is to help you calm down.'
As he tries to say that he is 'trained' to help people do just that, she interrupts to ask if she can have a glass of water.
'You can have water,' the officer replies, but Paul asks again, 'Am I OK to get that.'
'I said you are,' he reiterates coldly before she smacks a plastic glass against the countertop.
A previously released portion of the bodycam footage showed Paul's boyfriend Mortensen asking police if they could arrest him instead of her; he's pictured in May of last year in LA at the Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives season two premiere
While she fills up the glass from her refrigerator, she goes back to his comment about her level of intoxication.
'Extremely intoxicated? I'm like a two out of 10,' she claims. 'Please, enlighten me on that, by the way.'
She encourages him to 'test me on that, if you want,' but then suggests he use his breathalyzer, though she pronounces it so that it sounds like 'blezaryzer,' before correcting herself.
She adds that she got a 'safe driver' to take her home that evening from her 'girls' night.'
Paul then warns that her father will soon be there to witness the interaction, which the officer says is fine, and she accuses him of having 'no empathy' for her.
'He just pushed me in the garage,' she says of Mortensen as she begins to tear up again.
The officer then tries to explain again that he's only there to help her calm down, and that they have to wait for the primary officer to finish with Mortensen before he can interview her.
Paul accuses him of being on 'his side' through her sobs.
Video previously obtained by the Daily Mail shows an intoxicated and emotional Paul telling police she went 'ballistic' on boyfriend Mortensen after cops responded to a domestic violence call at her Utah home on February 17
The Mormon influencer can be seen crying and slurring her words as police attempt to talk to her about the altercation
As he tries to explain himself, she interrupts again to say her 'hand is aching,' but she turns down the officer's offer to have paramedics check her out.
'Yelling, is that a crime?' she asks him, and he clarifies that it's not illegal.
'I'm in so much pain!' Paul cries as her sobs increase, and she puts her face in her hands, but when the officer asks if she wants to speak to anyone, like a 'crisis worker,' she responds, 'No, I just want him to go home.'
Then Paul walks over to the sofa and appears to say 'I'm sorry' to her sleeping child, who is blacked out in the police footage.
'I just wanna say goodnight, and then I want to go to bed. Is that OK?' she asks. 'Is that a crime?'
The officer tells her that she'll have to wait while the primary interviews Mortensen, and Paul, who has stopped crying, asks if she can use the bathroom.
'Do you have to do that right now?' the officer asks her, before she says it'll be 'two seconds,' before she closes the bathroom door, at which point the new video ends.
Previous footage obtained by the Daily Mail revealed that Paul flew into a rage because her boyfriend refused to take her to a concert because she was too intoxicated.
Paul – pictured in a TikTok video with Mortensen and daughter Indy – was arrested after cops learned she threw a chair at Mortensen that ended up striking the five-year in the head
When police arrived at the scene in a Salt Lake City suburb, the influencer told them she was so scared she had 'peed' herself, the video shows
When Paul was being placed under arrest for domestic violence, she asked the cop, 'so he isn't being arrested? He pushed me and I'm under arrest?'
Mortensen, who was also interviewed, told cops Paul has been struggling with personal issues and adding alcohol to the mix causes her to explode
The Mormon mom 'went ballistic' and threw chairs at boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, accidentally hitting her five-year-old daughter Indy in the head in the process.
And when police arrived at the scene in a Salt Lake City suburb, the influencer told them she was so scared she had 'peed' herself, the video shows.
Paul was arrested on February 17 at her home in Herriman, Utah, on misdemeanor charges.
But after Mortensen provided cops with video from his cell phone showing the chair hitting Indy, the charges were upgraded to felony aggravated assault, reckless child abuse, and domestic violence in the presence of a child.
Two weeks later, the Salt Lake County District Attorney charged Paul with two counts of 3rd degree felony domestic violence in the presence of a child with injury, a Class A misdemeanor of child abuse with injury, and Class B misdemeanor criminal mischief.
If she is convicted of the charges, she would face up to five years in state prison for each of the three felonies with which she is charged. She is next due in court on April 14.
Paul found fame on TikTok, where she has more than 4 million followers after regularly sharing content about her day-to-day life, two children and now estranged husband.
She shocked her fans last summer when she admitted that she and husband Tate were divorcing because she had gone too far during a 'soft swinging' event.
Mortensen, who has been dating Paul for six months, said he planned to pick her up from a friend's house to go to a concert, but as soon as he arrived he realized she was too intoxicated to go
The 'soft swinger' who has amassed 4million followers on TikTok, shocked her fans last summer when she admitted that she and husband Tate were divorcing. She introduced Mortensen as her boyfriend to fans in a March 19 Instagram post
Soft swinging involves couples swapping partners but not engaging in full sex.
After splitting with Tate — the father of her children — she started hooking up with Mortensen.
The bodycam video from the night of her arrest shows Herriman officers Ben Rugebregt and Alex Felsing knocking on Paul's door after receiving a 911 from a neighbor.
Both Paul and Mortensen, her boyfriend of six months, are seen answering the door.
When the officers ask them what was going on, Dakota tells them Taylor was 'hammered.'
Taylor responds back saying 'so is he.' She then tells police, that Dakota 'threw me in the garage.'
Rugebregt and Felsing then separate the couple, taking Paul outside. She can be seen crying and slurring her words as police attempt to talk to her.
'I'm emotionally hurting and going through a divorce,' she tells them.
In Herriman Police's report of the incident, the responding officer described smelling a 'strong odor of alcohol coming from Taylor'
Police also interviewed Mortensen who said Paul became angry and violent after he refused to take her to a concert, the report reveals
But seconds later she turns belligerent and says: 'I don't give a f*** anymore.
'I don't give a f*** about him,' she says, referring to Mortensen. 'I just want him out.
'I pushed him, I hit him, he pushed me. I don't care. I went ballistic because he pushed me. I just want him out.'
She went on to explain that her boyfriend had picked her up from a girls night and he 'b****ed her out' all the way home.
Taylor admitted to police she threw things at Dakota because she was scared of him, and he had pushed her first.
She also told police she wet her pants because she was scared.
But Mortensen, 30, told cops in the video that he had picked Taylor up from girls' night out and she was drunk.
He said they had an agreement to stay away from alcohol as he's a recovering addict.
Cops reported seeing injuries on both Paul and Mortensen, but determined she was the primary aggressor
After Mortensen provided cops with video from his cell phone showing the chair hitting Indy, the charges were upgraded to felony aggravated assault, reckless child abuse, and domestic violence in the presence of a child, officers said
He told the police Paul is struggling with personal issues and adding alcohol to the mix causes her to explode.
He said he was supposed to go to a concert with a friend, but when Paul found out, she wanted to go along and asked him to pick her up from the party.
According to Mortensen, the original plan was to stop by Paul's house to get her ID and then go to the concert, but as soon as he arrived he realized she was in no condition to go.
He said she then became angry and began to berate him on the drive back.
They arrived back at her house and a family member, who had been watching Indy and Paul's two-year-old son Ocean, left.
Mortensen said over the next 90 minutes he tried to leave her house to 'deescalate' the situation, but Paul wouldn't let him.
He said she threw her phone at him. She took his truck keys jumped on the vehicle and slammed its doors several times.
She hurled a wooden play set at him, which hit his truck. She also threw heavy metal chairs at him so violently that they put holes in the walls.
She was booked on three misdemeanor charges – assault, criminal mischief and domestic violence in the presence of a child
Mortensen refused to say what caused her arrest, but let slip, 'She never hurt anyone intentionally.' Paul is pictured with daughter Indy, five, and two-year-old son Ocean
In his report, Sergeant Rugebregt said he 'observed multiple metal chairs and other household items on the floor by the front entryway. The chairs look like they may have come from a kitchen island.'
'I observed a case of roses on the ground by the kitchen island,' he added.
Mortensen said all of this violence took place in front of Indy. Ocean was upstairs, asleep.
He told police that he started to feel scared for his life because of the weight of the chairs and said one bounced off his shoulder and hit Indy in the head.
He admitted pushing Paul out of his way, because she wouldn't let him leave.
'She fell down because she was hammered,' he said.
The cops clearly did not realize that Paul was an internet celebrity.
When Mortensen started asking if her mugshot would be released, one officer can be heard saying: 'It's not like she's going to make the news.'
Taylor shares two young children, Indy and Ocean, with her ex-husband, Tate
When Paul was being placed under arrest for domestic violence, she asked the cop, 'so he isn't being arrested? He pushed me, and I'm under arrest?'
After being placed in handcuffs, she continued questioning the police officer on why she was being arrested.
She then added, 'when Dakota sees I'm being arrested he's not going to agree to it.' She then said, 'I p***ed my pants and I'm under arrest?'
During the arrest, Paul's parents, Jeremy and Liann May, arrived to take the kids.
While being handcuffed, Paul told her mother: 'I'm being arrested for pushing Dakota.'
Liann replied, 'Yeah, that's domestic violence.'
While being placed in the back of the patrol vehicle, Paul was still complaining about her arrest. She told the cop: 'He punched me too and I'm a girl.'
Before she was led off to jail, Paul's mother talked to her through the window of the patrol vehicle and didn't mince her words, telling her, 'My grandkids should have never seen this. I'm surprised you are doing this.'
Paul took a month off social media following her arrest. But she recently posted on TikTok that she has been taking Zoloft to help her with her depression and anxiety, and was going to therapy to help deal with her trauma.
She also said she recently spent time with Mortensen's family in Logan, Utah, and how she loves all of them. She announced that she is keeping her kids off TikTok for now, but not forever. She did not mention her pending court battles.
