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Dakota Mortensen claimed Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul was “talking to another guy” and “lied” to Dakota about it before “hook[ing] up with me.” Meanwhile, Taylor alleged that Dakota tattooed her initials on the back of his lips after their split.
Last month, ABC cancelled Taylor’s season on The Bachelorette after a 2023 video surfaced of her throwing chairs at Dakota, one of which allegedly hit her child. Dakota recently filed a restraining order against her, claiming she choked him in February. Dakota was granted the request, and he now has temporary custody of their son.
“I never have moved on from Taylor and I was just waiting for her,” said Dakota on Unwell Winter Games. “I was like, maybe I’ll have a chance. … I found out she was talking to another guy, hooked up with him, then hooked up with me.”
“Did you know that she hooked up with a guy before you?” asked another contestant.
“No, she lied to me, then had sex with me, and then after tells me,” Dakota answered. “And I was like, what the f**k?”
Around the same time, Page Six obtained a protective order in which Taylor claimed that Dakota sent her an image, on February 14, showing her tattooed initials on the inside of Dakota’s lips.
She claimed he did this despite their breakup, and she called it an “alarming” example of her ex’s “increasingly possessive and erratic behavior.”
“My initials are now permanently tattooed on the body of a man who has been abusive toward and possessive of me,” said Taylor, who included the photos in the petition, but not the date when the images were taken.
Allegedly, Dakota got the tattoo hours after Taylor wrote a Valentine’s Day post promoting her season of The Bachelorette. According to PEOPLE, Dakota purportedly revealed the tattoo to SLOMW castmates the next day “on camera while filming the show.”
Taylor also alleged in the temporary restraining order filing that Dakota “bombard[ed]” her with texts after their split “in an unwelcome attempt to resume their relationship.”
Additionally, the star accused Dakota of coming to her house on February 22 early in the morning and at first refused to leave, before he came back again that evening as well as the next day. According to Taylor, this “put [her] in fear of abuse.”
She alleged that they fought on February 23 in Dakota’s car, where he purportedly “assaulted [Paul] by slamming her head against the dashboard of his truck and striking her knee and elbow.”
Her request for the TRO had several images of injuries she allegedly received because of the assault. The judge granted Taylor’s protective order, which means Dakota has to remain 100 yards from her until their next court hearing on April 30, per TMZ. He’s also not allowed to communicate with her in any way, including calls, texts or emails.
On April 11, Taylor shared a photo of herself in what seemed to be tears.
“It’s miraculous that every essential or reminder I’ve never was GIVEN though people,” she wrote on Instagram, before adding in the caption, “Just want to say THANK YOU to those that have all helped carry. Nothing but gratitude for these gifts given by different people at different times that have been essential for me through this specific time.”
“Thank you to every message, meal, gift, call, prayer, and support of any kind sent,” she went on. “There is the human side of this and then it gets to a point of it being miraculous when you start to see it from a bigger lens.”