AVERAGE AMERICAN EXCLUSIVE: Throughout our reporting on Taylor Sharp we have received tips, testimonies, and accounts, sometimes anonymous. We treat these as claims, not established facts. Taylor Sharp is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. We attempt to fact-check where possible and to report what both sides tell us with accuracy.
Today’s account comes from the father of Taylor Sharp’s fiancée, Gianna Carlson. He has gone on the record describing alleged encounters with Sharp and the impact he says those encounters had on his family. The statements below are his claims. They have not been independently adjudicated, and no criminal charges related to these specific allegations are known to have been filed at the time of publication.
Who is Scott Carlson?
When I spoke with him on the phone for over an hour, he had all the strength and passion of the man that I read about. He is best known for being a decorated and distinguished firefighter who sacrificed his career in favor of his values by refusing to take a COVID vaccine, a story I know all too well even in my own family. But Proverbs says that Children’s greatest glory is their fathers, and Scott is the father of 3, including Gianna, the now Fiancée of the embattled Taylor Sharp.
“There’s not enough time in this call to describe how amazing Gianna is,” He said, speaking about his daughter. He told us many things, from the coffee dates they used to go on to the mission trips she took, including one deep in the Amazon, where they didn’t have contact. “She raised the money herself. Dana and I didn’t encourage her at all. She said, I want to go to the Amazon.” Scott recounts how they were scared, particularly her mother, and she said in response “If it’s for God, I’m going to be fine.”
Scott’s First Impression of Taylor
“So the first time I met him, I thought he was insecure. Because he talked so much, and he constantly wanted to tell me all the people he knew, like, oh, I’m friends with Ken Paxton. Oh, I can call Greg Abbott right now, he was just flexing.” He recounts telling his wife of his first impression of Taylor, saying he thought he was just young and immature.
Scott recounts an alleged interaction he had with Taylor during dinner one night. I chalked it up to being immature. “I was cooking dinner for him, and he’s like, what are you guys eating? And I was like, oh, I’m barbecuing chicken. He goes, I don’t eat chicken. Taylor allegedly took Gianna’s car and drove out to buy a wagyu steak to grill, saying “This is how Americans eat.” there was allegedly a buildup of small incidents leading up to that.
The Buildup
Another incident he recounted was in their home when Taylor was allegedly watching Nick Fuentes on their TV. Scott told Taylor to turn it off, citing Fuentes’s inflammatory and often racist rhetoric. “The biggest thing I hate in this bullying, any form of bullying, I consider racism a form of bullying.” He asked them to turn it off and walked away, but when he got back it was still playing, which upset him further. He recounts talking to Gianna about it the next day, and that she allegedly downplayed it and made it out to be a big joke. “That was the first time that I was taken aback, that she was okay with something that she would have never been okay with herself. She herself was against people that acted like that.”
He also recounted another incident involving another person very close to the Carlson Family. “soon after, when he left, my middle kid was dating a boy named Mason. And he’s Latino. And he had made some comments to him that weren’t very kind.” he recounts that Gianna’s sister resorted to commenting on Sharp’s posts and trolling him on TikTok. “There was a bunch of times that Taylor’s responses were just pure racist. So I went to Gianna and I said, you know what, even if your sister’s trolling your boyfriend, no, absolutely not. I will not tolerate that. That is inexcusable. And he owes him an apology.”
How Has Gianna Been Affected?
Scott talked extensively on the things that changed since Taylor came into the picture. “Before him, we had a great relationship, like phenomenal relationship. Gianna and I had a road trip to Oxford, Mississippi. Just her and I, we just stayed there to do the JD Vance, TPUSA thing. I stood in line with her for four hours just talking in the rain, just her and I just hanging out. And then she won a National Photography Award. And that award was in Savannah. So her and I drove there, and we stayed there for a week together, had a great time. When she was debating on going to college, we flew to Liberty University, just her and I. Her and I were so close. And we talked every day.”
He talks about how Gianna became more withdrawn from her family and from her life leading up to her departure. “We verbally talked every day. And then once she met Taylor, she sat in her room, and she disappeared. And I was just like, okay, puppy love, whatever. And a lot of us didn’t pay much mind because we just thought it fizzle out because we all thought he was a tool. But then when she decided not to come home, she didn’t even call us, she sent us a text and said, I’m 18, I can do what I want. I’m not coming home.”
How Did Gianna Leave?
He recounts how what started as a 4 day trip to Prescott, Arizona, turned into Gianna refusing to come home. “Gianna kept selling us. She goes, no, listen, we won’t even go to Denise’s house. We’re going to go to his grandparents house.
And they’ve been married for 60 years. And they’re super Christian. I was talking to Dana about it, I was like, well, they’re going to be at the grandparents. They’re not going to be just sitting in the city. Maybe, you know, we could look the other way.”
He laid out some ground rules for the two. One boundary he set was he wanted her only to stay with Taylor’s grandparents and not his mom, Denise. He also said he didn’t feel comfortable with Gianna accompanying Taylor to a protest, a request they allegedly ignored. “That was the last real interaction I had. I tried to text and try and do things. And the next time I heard anything from her is when she texted Dana and I saying that she was 18 and she could do what she wants, so she’s not coming home.”
When I asked him what that was like, he said “Panic. In an instant, all the things that I’ve just told you came flooding back to me as bright red flags. The moment she texted me like that, I was like, That’s not who my girl is. And it was sheer panic.” He recounted that he called anyone he could, from Gianna to Denise, and nobody answered. It got to the point where they all blocked him, which further added to the terror. “I was loading the car up and I was ready to go. Like, I was gonna get her home because in my in my heart, she was being kidnapped. She was being held against her will. There’s no way my girl would act like this.”
Responding To Claims Made By Taylor
During his conversation with Average American Chief Editor Kameron Rudat, Taylor claimed that the Carlsons withheld Gianna’s diploma. Scott heavily disputes this. “Where Taylor is absolutely lying and saying that we’re withholding it, Gianna didn’t complete her classes. Once she met Taylor, she stopped logging online and stopped attending the in-person classes.” For context, Gianna attended a local homeschool co-op where she took an in-person class, and she also took separate online classes (not affiliated with the co-op). All of these were administered by her mother, who is herself a schoolteacher. “She had multiple classes there that she never went to again. She left here in early February, they didn’t graduate until May. So how would we possibly withhold a diploma when a student didn’t set foot in a class or finish her classes from early February through May?”
Another claim Scott denied was that Taylor was well liked among the people in their circles before this all climaxed. Scott listed off the names of many family friends and townspeople, including their pastor, who allegedly voiced their concerns with him behind Taylor’s back. “So when [a family was] driving home, the dad called me and he’s like, dude, that guy’s a tool. I don’t know how you’re letting that guy hang around with you. He’s a no for me.” Scott alleges that many of them saw him as a “tool” who was “Full of himself” and “couldn’t stand him,” among other quotes Scott gave me. “They’re presenting themselves in a manner that is not accurate to what they’re portraying.”
“If you could say one thing to your daughter, what would it be?”
“Just that I love her. We love her and we just want her home. This is not what we want at all. We just miss her terribly.”
One specific claim Taylor made was that Gianna’s parents hate him because “she chose him over them.” Scott vehemently denies that this is the reason; it’s a multitude of things: the feeling of their daughter being allegedly “taken away” from them, Taylor’s remarks regarding women, Taylor’s actions while visiting them, and what Scott calls his “manipulation” of their daughter, because he says she wouldn’t have said or done most of these things until she met Taylor.
Closing
Since Average American published its article on what Taylor Sharp shared after reconnecting with Editor-in-Chief Kameron Rudat, Sharp has cut off all communication with this outlet.
That silence follows our refusal to pursue a separate story he pushed us to run: an investigation into Faith Merrill’s finances, prompted by his stated dislike of what he called her “lavish lifestyle” and his suggestion that questions be raised about where her money comes from.
We said no. Average American doesn’t report on people’s personal finances based on speculation, personal grievance, or a source’s discomfort with how someone else lives. We held that line with Taylor Sharp throughout this investigation, and we’re holding it here now. If real evidence of wrongdoing regarding Faith Merrill’s finances is ever brought to us, we’ll look at it and evaluate it on its merits, the same standard we apply to every claim in this story. Until then, it isn’t a story. It’s an accusation without a foundation, and we’re not going to print it.
Videos provided by Scott Carlson. Content has not been independently authenticated as complete or unedited by Average American News. The statements and allegations contained in or accompanying this video remain unproven. Taylor Sharp is presumed innocent. We have made minor edits to shield the identity of the individual shown in the videos.