Taylor Frankie Paul is giving viewers an inside look at her past struggles by sharing a shocking photo of a dark bruise on her arm.
Paul has accused her ex-boyfriend, Dakota Mortensen, of physical and emotional abuse. He has also accused her of domestic violence.
In a photo shared to her Instagram story on Wednesday, May 27, Paul appeared to be fresh out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her body. A large, purple bruise could be seen on her bicep area.
“The psychological torture damaged me much more than the physical,” she wrote alongside the photo. “You eventually become a shell of a human. This is hard to share because it’s hard to come to terms with,” she continued.
Paul did not refer to Mortensen by name in the post, leaving fans to draw their own conclusions about how she received the bruise. She also did not share the date when the photo was taken.
Mortensen and Paul, who both starred on the hit reality television series The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, have had a very tumultuous relationship.
The former pair have been involved in a bitter custody dispute over their son, 2-year-old Ever.
However, Paul’s legal issues go beyond the custody battle. In February of 2023, she was arrested and charged with assault as well as domestic violence in the presence of a child after an altercation between her and Mortensen turned physical.
More recently, Paul was involved in an investigation into additional alleged incidents of domestic violence, also connected to Mortensen. In April of 2026, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office announced that it would not be filing any new charges against Paul at the time.
As part of a caption of an Instagram post from April, Paul discussed the experience of going through these personal struggles publicly.
“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 wrote.
