Quick Facts
| First arrest | February 18, 2023 — Herriman, Utah |
| Initial charges | Assault, criminal mischief, domestic violence in presence of a child |
| Plea outcome | Guilty plea to aggravated assault (August 2023); 3-year probation |
| Video leaked | March 2026 published by TMZ |
| The bachelorette cancelled | March 19, 2026 three days before premiere |
| DA decision | April 15, 2026 declined to file new charges |
If you’ve spent any time on TikTok or reality TV Twitter in the last few months, you’ve probably seen Taylor Frankie Paul’s name attached to some version of the words “domestic violence”, “arrest”, or “charges dropped”. The problem is that most headlines tell you one piece of the story and not always accurately.
This article puts the whole thing together. The 2023 arrest. The plea deal that she later described on a podcast as charges being “dropped” (they weren’t, exactly). The 2026 video leak that blew everything up again. The three separate investigations. The Bachelorette cancellation. And the question nobody in the mainstream coverage is really asking is, ‘What about Dakota Mortensen, the man on the receiving end of this?’
No agenda here. Just the full story, clearly explained.
Who Is Taylor Frankie Paul?
Taylor Frankie Paul is a 31-year-old TikTok creator from Utah with around 4 million followers, best known as a central figure in the Mormon MomTok community, a loose network of young, largely Latter-day Saint mothers who built significant audiences on TikTok by sharing their domestic lives with unusual candor.
Taylor Frankie Paul wasn’t always controversial. For a while, she was just a relatable mom doing lifestyle content. That changed in May 2022, when she went live on TikTok and revealed that she and her then husband Tate Paul had been part of a “soft swinging” arrangement with other MomTok couples meaning they swapped partners with the mutual agreement not to “go all the way.” She then disclosed that she had stepped outside that agreement. Within days, she was one of the most-searched people on the internet.
The divorce from Tate followed. She shares two children with him: daughter Indy, now 8, and son Ocean, now 5. She later began a relationship with Dakota Mortensen, and in March 2024, the two had a son together named Ever.
Through all of this, Paul was unusually open. She talked about her mental health struggles post-divorce, a pregnancy loss she experienced in 2022, the loneliness of public scrutiny. That transparency is a big part of why she built such a loyal following and why, when legal trouble arrived, a significant portion of her audience defaulted to defending her without asking many questions.
She was also, by early 2026, set to become the lead of The Bachelorette Season 22 on ABC, with a premiere date of March 22. That matters for what comes next.
The 2023 Arrest: What Happened That Night
In the early hours of February 18, 2023, a neighbor near Taylor Frankie Paul’s home in Herriman, Utah, called 911. The caller described hearing a woman screaming, a garage door repeatedly opening and shutting, and what sounded like someone trying to get out. The caller mentioned she believed children might be in the house.
Police arrived and found both Paul and her then-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen at the property. What happened inside is disputed but here’s what both sides agree on: it got physical.
Mortensen told officers that Paul had been drinking and began throwing metal barstools at him. “Taylor Frankie Paul was launching those metal chairs at me,” he told police. “I was actually a little bit scared for my life there.” He also pointed out that Paul’s daughter Indy, then five years old, was on the couch in the room while this was happening.
Paul told a different story. She said Mortensen had pushed her “into the wooden thing” first and that she reacted. She also told officers she was afraid of him.
Police arrested Paul at 1:56 a.m. She was booked by Herriman City Police and released a few hours later. The initial charges were three misdemeanors: assault, criminal mischief, and domestic violence in the presence of a child.
Then detectives reviewed additional video evidence footage from inside the home and determined the case was serious enough to refer to the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office for potential felony assault charges. They also flagged the possibility of a reckless child abuse charge, based on evidence suggesting one of Paul’s children was injured during the incident.
For months, this played out quietly in the court system while Paul continued posting, growing her following, and appearing on the first season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu.
The Plea Deal: What “Charges Dropped” Actually Means
This is the section where a lot of the public confusion lives, and it matters because Taylor Frankie Paul herself contributed to it.
In September 2025, Taylor Frankie Paul appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast and, when the 2023 incident came up, said: “The charges were all dropped. I never did anything intentionally with my children. I never have ever.”
That framing spread. Many of her fans took it as confirmation that she had been cleared. She had not been.
What actually happened: in August 2023, Paul pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault as part of a plea agreement. The remaining charges were dismissed as part of that deal which is standard practice in plea negotiations, not a finding of innocence. She was placed on three years of probation and required to complete a mandatory parenting education program.
There’s also a legal nuance worth understanding: Utah courts sometimes use a “plea in abeyance,” which means the guilty plea is held in suspension. If the defendant completes all the terms of their probation, the conviction can be set aside. If they don’t, the plea is entered and the conviction stands. Paul’s probation was reportedly set to conclude in August 2026.
So when she said “the charges were dropped”, she was describing the dismissed counts not the count she pleaded guilty to. It’s technically defensible language, but it leaves out the part where she admitted guilt to aggravated assault in open court. The distinction matters, especially once the story reignited three years later.
The 2023 Video Leaks in 2026 and Everything Explodes
For three years, the footage from that February 2023 night sat on Dakota Mortensen’s phone. Then in March 2026, TMZ published it.
The video is difficult to watch. It shows Paul screaming at Mortensen and hurling metal barstools across the room while he backs away. Indy, then five, now eight can be seen on the couch in the corner. At one point, Mortensen can be heard saying her daughter just got hit in the head with a metal chair, and Indy’s crying is audible. When Mortensen tried to go to the child, Paul told him to get away from her.
Mortensen’s attorney later stated his client did not authorize the video’s release. Taylor Frankie Paul’s representatives immediately called it “selectively edited” and said it “conveniently omits context.” Her team also accused Mortensen of running a “never-ending, desperate, attention-seeking, destructive campaign to harm Taylor without any regard for the consequences for their child.”
The same day TMZ published the video, Mortensen filed for a restraining order and requested temporary sole custody of their two-year-old son, Ever.
Three days later, on March 19, 2026, ABC pulled The Bachelorette from its schedule just 72 hours before the planned March 22 premiere. The network didn’t say much publicly, but the implication was clear: airing a season starring someone whose domestic violence video had just gone viral nationwide wasn’t something they were willing to do.
Production on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 5 was also halted.
In the span of about a week, Paul went from upcoming Bachelorette lead to watching two major TV projects disappear. The viral moment that many public figures dread, the thing you can’t unsee had arrived at the worst possible professional moment.
Three Investigations: The Full Pattern of Allegations
The 2023 incident is the one most people know about. What’s less covered is that by early 2026, three separate incidents were under investigation, and the allegations ran in both directions.
Incident 1 — February 2023 (Herriman, Utah): The arrest described above. Paul pleaded guilty to aggravated assault; the remaining charges were dismissed. She has been on probation since.
Incident 2 — 2024 (West Jordan, Utah): At the end of February 2026, Mortensen contacted the West Jordan Police Department about a separate alleged domestic violence incident that occurred in early-to-mid 2024. He provided video he said documented the event. West Jordan Police confirmed they were reviewing that footage as part of an active investigation. This incident had never been previously reported to police Mortensen came forward with it after the 2026 situation escalated.
Incident 3 — February 2026 (Draper, Utah): An unknown caller contacted the Draper Police Department in late February 2026 to report that a friend had been the victim of domestic violence by an ex-girlfriend. The report described two incidents of physical assault, grabbing, scratching, shoving, and striking. Police documented photos of scratches on Mortensen’s neck as evidence.
Then the counter-allegations: Taylor Frankie Paul filed her own restraining order, accusing Mortensen of slamming her head into a car dashboard. Her representatives alleged she had been “silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse” for years and had stayed quiet out of fear of further abuse, retaliation, and public shaming.
By April 2026, both parties had filed restraining orders against each other. A Utah court official, at a hearing, essentially told them both the same thing: you need to stay away from each other. Mortensen’s attorney stated his client filed the protective order “to break the cycle” of violence and “protect his child.”
That courtroom summary reflects the messy reality of what domestic violence investigations often look like up close, particularly when children are involved and both parties are making claims.
Dakota Mortensen: The Male Victim Nobody Is Talking About
This is the angle that mainstream coverage has almost entirely avoided, and it deserves more than a sentence.
Mortensen, 33, is not a public figure. He doesn’t have millions of followers, a TV deal, or a publicist issuing statements. What he does have is police documentation showing he was “apprehensive” to report his alleged abuser because she is famous. That’s a direct quote from Draper Police Department records reviewed by TMZ.
Think about what that means practically. You’re in a relationship with someone. They physically assault you. You want to report it, but you know that the moment you do, the story will be framed around her career, her following, and your alleged motivations not your injuries. So you stay quiet. For three years.
This is not a fringe experience. Studies consistently show that men account for roughly one in three domestic violence victims in the United States but are significantly less likely to report it. The reasons are layered: social stigma, fear of not being believed, and the realistic worry that the story gets flipped on them. When your alleged abuser has four million devoted followers, speaking up can feel less like seeking justice and more like volunteering for a pile-on.
When the 2026 video eventually circulated, some of Paul’s supporters’ reactions proved exactly why men in Mortensen’s position hesitate. Comments questioning why he was filming, suggesting he provoked it, dismissing the footage all of it played out in real time, publicly.
Mortensen’s stated motivation, through his attorney, was not to destroy Paul. It was to stop a pattern. His attorney denied that his client leaked the video and said Mortensen filed the protective order to “break the cycle he and Paul were in” and to “protect his child, to stop the violence.” Whether you take that at face value or not, it’s worth asking honestly: if the genders in this story were reversed, would the public response look the same?
No New Charges: What the DA’s April 2026 Decision Means
On April 15, 2026, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill’s office announced it would not be filing new criminal charges against Taylor Frankie Paul.
The DA cited two reasons. First, some of the alleged misdemeanor offenses fell outside Utah’s statute of limitations they occurred more than two years before they were reported, which means prosecutors are legally barred from pursuing them regardless of what the evidence shows. Second, for the more recent incidents, the evidence did not meet the threshold required to bring charges.
Paul’s supporters took this as vindication. Some headlines framed it as her being “cleared”. But “declined to charge” is not the same as “innocent”, and precision matters here especially given how the plea deal was previously mischaracterized.
Declining to charge means the evidence, as it currently exists, is not sufficient to meet the legal standard for prosecution. It does not mean the events didn’t happen. It does not mean Paul was exonerated. It means the DA made a judgement call about what they could prove to a jury.
What didn’t change: Paul is still on probation for her 2023 aggravated assault conviction. That probation was set to conclude in August 2026. The conditions of that probation including the mandatory parenting education she completed, remain in effect until then.
Career Fallout: The Bachelorette, Mormon Wives, and Brand Impact
The speed at which things unraveled professionally says something about how the entertainment industry processes these situations or often, doesn’t, until it’s impossible to ignore.
ABC cast Taylor Frankie Paul as the lead of The Bachelorette Season 22 knowing she had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in 2023. That plea was public record. The network made a calculation presumably that the 2023 story was old and quiet enough not to matter. When the video surfaced in March 2026, that calculation expired overnight. The season was pulled three days before it was supposed to air.
This raises an uncomfortable industry question: at what point does a documented legal history disqualify someone from a major network platform? The answer, apparently, is when the visual evidence goes viral, not when the legal record exists. That’s a reactive standard, not a principled one.
Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 5 production was also halted. As of May 2026, no confirmed return date has been announced.
On the brand and influencer side, the financial consequences of a viral DV story can be significant. Sponsorships get quietly paused. Brand deals expire without renewal. Engagement shifts as audiences recalibrate how they feel. Taylor Frankie Paul had built a substantial content business over several years. The long-term impact on that business will depend largely on what the next chapter looks like and whether her audience decides this is a story about accountability or a story about redemption.
Taylor Frankie Paul’s Response: “Here Come the Ugly Parts”
After the DA declined to file new charges in April 2026, Paul posted on Instagram. Not a formal legal statement she wrote like herself.
“Here come the ugly parts of what healing actually looks like,” she opened. “If you know me, you know I’ll admit my parts, flaws, and faults. I’m well aware that’s a part of it.” She described the experience as a “public atrocity” she had lived through twice, once when it happened privately and again on a far larger scale when the video went viral.
On Mother’s Day 2026, Taylor Frankie Paul marked what she called a significant milestone, speaking about healing and protecting her three children. She referenced her completed parenting education program. Her tone was reflective rather than triumphant.
It’s genuinely difficult to evaluate what public accountability looks like from a creator whose audience is also her income. There’s a version of this where Paul is doing real work privately and publicly and using her platform to model what owning your mistakes looks like. There’s another version where this is carefully calibrated softness that acknowledges just enough without fully reckoning with what the video showed. Probably both things are true to some degree. People are complicated. Public ones especially.
In a TikTok comment, Paul wrote: “Worst part is my daughter having to relive and see it all over again years later after extensive work with her and apologies to her about that night.” That’s something. Whether it’s enough is a question each reader will answer for themselves.
What This Case Reveals About Influencer Accountability
Step back from the specifics for a moment, because this story is bigger than Taylor Frankie Paul.
What we’re watching in real time is a collision between the influencer economy and the accountability structures the rest of society operates under and they don’t fit together cleanly.
Paul built her following on radical personal transparency. The MomTok brand is intimacy: here is my house, my kids, my marriage, and my struggles. That intimacy creates what psychologists call ‘parasocial relationships’, the feeling of genuine friendship with someone you’ve never met. When that person is accused of something serious, the parasocial bond activates like a real one. Fans defend her the way they’d defend a close friend, filtering evidence through loyalty rather than through the facts in front of them.
ABC knew about the 2023 plea when they cast her. TikTok and Instagram have taken no public action on her accounts. Brand partners made their decisions quietly, off-camera. The accountability that actually landed came from a leaked video not from any system designed to handle it. That’s worth sitting with.
The influencer industry has almost no formal accountability infrastructure. There’s no HR department, no union, no standards body. There are only audiences and audiences can be mobilized as easily as they can be informed. What should accountability look like when the platform itself is a person and their brand depends on being liked?
These aren’t rhetorical questions. They’re the questions the next version of this story will ask about a different creator, and there will be a next version.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence:
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 (available 24/7) or thehotline.org
- For male survivors: 1-888-743-5754 (the ManKind Initiative)
- Text line: Text “START” to 88788 if you can’t speak safely
Domestic violence affects people of every gender, background, and relationship type. Reaching out is not weakness; it’s the first step.
Sources: Herriman City Police Department records, Salt Lake County DA’s Office, NBC News, Deadline, TMZ, Forbes, Page Six, Salt Lake County court documents.
