This article was originally published on Crafting Your Home. A human contributor also wrote and edited the post.
Taylor Frankie Paul just added another chapter to what has become one of the most tangled celebrity legal sagas of the year.
A Utah judge has ruled that “stalking has occurred” and identified Cru Eaton, the roommate of Paul’s ex Dakota Mortensen, as the stalker, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.
The ruling gives Paul a sweeping set of protections, but it comes amid several other overlapping legal fights involving her children, her ex-boyfriend, and a years-old criminal case that only just closed out.
The injunction against Eaton, 34, is broad by design. According to the court documents, he is barred from contacting Paul in any manner, whether directly or indirectly, including through social media, direct messages, tagging, or contact routed through third parties.
He is also prohibited from posting, publishing, or distributing any statements, comments, or content about her on Reddit, TikTok, or any other website, forum, or social media platform, particularly content meant to harass, intimidate, threaten, or damage her.
The order further bars Eaton from making any statements that reference Paul’s name, identity, likeness, job title, employer, coworkers, attorneys, or place of employment, and it prevents him from encouraging anyone else to communicate with or post about her on his behalf.
The video that triggered the ruling
The judge’s decision traces back to a clip Eaton posted on July 9 that captured Paul in the middle of an argument with Mortensen.
In the footage, Paul can be heard pleading with her ex, asking, “Why are you filming, Dakota?” and telling him, “This is real!” Mortensen, who was behind the camera, responded by referencing past allegations against her, saying at one point, “What about the 120th time you’ve beaten me up and I’ve never done anything?”
He went on to accuse her of acting differently once she realized she was being recorded, telling her she was “not beating me up anymore” while he held their child, and at another point calling her “an abusive person.”
Sources close to Paul described the video very differently from what Mortensen said in it. A source told PEOPLE that the footage “shows Dakota berating his postpartum girlfriend, repeatedly heightening the situation despite her asking him to stop.”
The same source added a pointed criticism of Eaton specifically, saying, “It’s sad that someone who isn’t the parent would post these videos and keep fanning the flames, the kids will find these videos one day.”
That framing stands in sharp contrast to another source who spoke on behalf of people in Mortensen’s circle, telling PEOPLE, “People close to Dakota are sick of watching Taylor get away with all of this. They want to help, but sometimes the way they try might not actually help him out the most.”
Eaton has not stayed quiet about the situation either. When he originally posted the video, he pushed back against critics who questioned why he was recording, writing in part, “Everyone is so concerned and so focused on what must have been happening before the videos started. You guys do understand that Dakota doesn’t start these fights, so he has no way of knowing when he needs to be recording them, correct?”
He has since requested a hearing to challenge the injunction, and according to a source who spoke to Us Weekly, that objection hearing was scheduled for Aug. 7.
The same source disputed a separate, unrelated allegation that had circulated online accusing Eaton of poisoning the mother of his child, calling that claim false and describing the toll the public backlash has taken on him personally, including what the source said were death threats, hate mail, and damage to his job prospects.
It is worth being precise about what this ruling does and does not establish. The court’s finding is specific to Eaton’s conduct toward Paul.
It does not serve as a legal determination about the broader allegations Paul and Mortensen have leveled against each other throughout their relationship, nor does it resolve the ongoing disputes over their son. Those questions remain tied up in a separate and still-active custody case.
A child welfare petition landed the very same week
The timing of the stalking injunction is difficult to separate from another major development in Paul’s life.
The same week she was granted the order against Eaton, Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services filed a petition asking a juvenile court to determine whether Paul’s three children are “abused, neglected, or dependent.”
The July 13 filing, submitted by the Utah Attorney General’s Office on DCFS’s behalf, asked the court to order protective supervision services and appoint a guardian ad litem to represent the children, along with any additional orders deemed to be in their best interest.
The petition also cited concerns about Paul’s emotional regulation, her participation in therapy, and her progress on an existing family plan, according to reporting from PEOPLE.
Paul addressed the petition directly in a lengthy Instagram video posted five days later, on July 18, in which she denied specific claims, including an allegation that she had “stormed out” of her own home during a DCFS visit and another that she had made her 8-year-old daughter, Indy, change her toddler son’s diaper.
She did not deny every allegation outright, telling followers there was “a lot of false information out there,” while also acknowledging, “that being said, there are some things that are true as well.”
An attorney representing both Mortensen and Paul’s ex-husband, Tate Paul, responded in a statement to PEOPLE saying they were “deeply concerned that Taylor’s statement minimizes the gravity of the action filed by DCFS and her many underlying actions that prompted such.”
Paul’s own legal team struck a different tone, telling PEOPLE that she “remains fully committed to doing whatever is necessary” to reach the goal of normalizing custody and becoming, in their words, “the healthiest version of herself.”
Paul shares her toddler son, Ever, with Mortensen, and daughter Indy and son Ocean with ex-husband Tate Paul. Her custody arrangement with Mortensen has shifted several times over the year.
A judge lifted a mandatory supervision requirement on Paul’s visits with Ever at a June 1 hearing, granting her a fixed midweek day and alternating weekends without overnights, while Mortensen remained the primary custodial parent and retained custody during holidays.
Her parenting time was expanded again at a July 8 hearing, when her alternating weekend visits were extended through Monday mornings.
Both Mortensen and Tate Paul have separately proposed custody arrangements that would have given Paul roughly 35 to 40 percent of parenting time with her children, offers she reportedly turned down because she did not believe reducing her time below half would serve her children’s interests, according to sources who spoke to TMZ.
A years-old criminal case finally closed out
Adding yet another layer to the summer, Paul’s long-running 2023 criminal case reached its conclusion just weeks after the stalking injunction and DCFS filing.
During a Friday, Aug. 7 court hearing, a judge ruled that Paul had successfully completed her three-year probation stemming from a 2023 arrest connected to a physical altercation with Mortensen, during which she threw metal chairs at him while her then 5-year-old daughter, Indy, was in the room.
As a result of completing probation, the judge amended Paul’s original aggravated assault felony charge down to a Class A misdemeanor.
Paul’s attorney, Jon Williams, appeared in court on her behalf, as Paul herself was not present. She addressed the outcome afterward on Instagram, writing, “Three years probation complete. All my POs said it was one of the longest probations they had seen for first time offense.”
She continued, reflecting on how much her understanding of the situation has changed since her arrest. “Back then I wasn’t even aware of what DV was. Unfortunately many will experience it as many already have.”
A source close to Paul described the development to Us Weekly as “a positive development and step in the right direction on Taylor’s healing journey.”
Regarding the separate question of whether Paul’s supervised parenting time should be adjusted further in light of the case’s resolution, the judge indicated the decision was not yet final, saying, “I’m going to leave the current order in place. I need to think a little bit more about this lifting of supervision. I have mixed feelings about it.”
Taken together, the stalking injunction, the DCFS petition, and the resolution of the 2023 criminal case represent three separate legal tracks that all converged within the same several-week stretch.
Each involves a different set of facts and a different court, and none individually confirms or resolves the disputed allegations at the center of Paul and Mortensen’s relationship.
What is confirmed is that a judge found Eaton’s conduct toward Paul met Utah’s legal definition of stalking, that DCFS has asked a separate court to examine her children’s welfare, and that her 2023 case has now formally closed with a reduced charge.
How the remaining custody and DCFS proceedings play out is still an open question, and neither Paul, Mortensen, nor Tate Paul has indicated the broader legal fight is close to over.
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