Clean Slate or Last Chance? Taylor Frankie Paul's Custody Call

A Utah judge has handed“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”star Taylor Frankie Paul a conditional path back to unsupervised parenting time—but there’s a catch. She’ll need to pass drug and alcohol testing first.

The ruling comes as a partial win for her ex-husband Tate Paul, who recently asked the court to reconsider an earlier decision that denied his request for a temporary restraining order affecting their custody arrangement for their two children, Indy and Ocean. While the judge rejected several of Tate’s claims for lack of evidence, the court did order Taylor to undergo the testing and provide treatment records to DCFS if requested.

Here’s the stakes: if the results come back clean, Taylor regains full unsupervised parenting access. A positive test for any unprescribed drugs or alcohol, however, means supervised visits continue—and the court will hold a hearing on Tate’s request for a temporary restraining order. It’s a high-wire balancing act where the judge appears to be giving Taylor a measurable way to prove her fitness as a parent while taking Tate’s concerns seriously enough to act on them.

The custody battle has intensified since Taylor’s recent treatment stay, which prompted Tate to submit text messages and other materials he claimed raised questions about her ability to safely parent. Rather than dismiss those concerns outright, the court created a structured framework that puts concrete benchmarks in place. For Taylor, this is both an opportunity and a test—one where the results are binary and the implications for her family are substantial.

It’s a reminder that in high-profile custody disputes, judges increasingly rely on objective metrics—drug tests, treatment records, documented compliance—rather than hearsay or one parent’s word against another’s. Whether that framework serves everyone’s best interest, though, depends entirely on what those test results say.