Taylor Frankie Paul has broken her silence following the dropping of domestic violence charges against her, sharing a raw and candid update about where she is in the healing process.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star, 31, posted a carousel of mirror selfies on Instagram on Sunday, accompanied by an emotional caption that made no attempt to minimise the difficulty of what she is going through.
“Here come the ugly parts of what healing actually looks like. If you know me you know I’ll admit my parts, flaws, and faults. I’m well aware that’s apart of it. We’ll get there,” she wrote.
Paul acknowledged that the public nature of her situation had compounded the pain considerably.
“This public atrocity that I not only lived through once but twice now, on even a bigger scale was ultimately the cost to my freedom. I wouldn’t wish this upon my worst enemy or even the ones who publicized it.”
She added, using a striking image: “Metaphorically someone witnessed me bleeding out and poured salt all over me… somehow I’m still here.”
She expressed gratitude to those who had stood by her without having the full picture, and revealed that after seven weeks of waiting, she had received news on the seventh day that all charges had been dropped.
“We’re working on eating, movement, rest, and retraining the nervous system,” she wrote, adding that she planned to document her recovery.
“I’ll be sharing the process, because if my worst is shared better bet I’ll share the rebuilding too.”
The Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office declined to file charges on 14 April, citing evidentiary issues.
Some alleged incidents were found to fall outside the statute of limitations, while others were deemed to lack sufficient evidence to meet the criminal threshold.
The dropped charges follow a turbulent period for Paul.
Last month, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives paused filming on season five while she was under investigation, and ABC pulled her season of The Bachelorette after footage emerged from 2023 showing a domestic violence incident between her and ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, 33, in which she attacked him with chairs in front of her now eight-year-old daughter Indy.
Despite the charges being dropped, Paul remains involved in a custody dispute with Mortensen, who petitioned for an order of protection against her.
He was granted temporary custody of their two-year-old son Ever, and Paul is currently permitted only supervised visits due to concerns about her behaviour.
