Sabrina Carpenter wins temporary restraining order against alleged stalker

A Los Angeles County court has granted Sabrina Carpenter a temporary restraining order against a man she says tried to force his way into her Hollywood Hills home and returned to the area after being arrested.

The order bars William Applegate, 31, from coming within 100 yards of Carpenter, her sister Sarah Carpenter and Sarah Carpenter’s partner, who also live at the home, according to court documents cited by NBC News. It also covers Carpenter’s home, workplace and vehicle, and prohibits Applegate from harassing, intimidating, threatening, contacting or stalking her.

Carpenter filed a request for a civil harassment restraining order in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Friday. In a signed declaration, she said Applegate’s alleged conduct had left her in fear for her safety.

“His pattern of stalking, trespassing, and surveillance has caused me severe and ongoing emotional distress, and I am in fear [of] what he may do if he is not restrained by his Court,” Carpenter wrote, according to NBC News. The BBC, citing court documents seen by its U.S. partner CBS, reported that Carpenter described the incidents as “deeply alarming” and said they had caused “significant and ongoing fear” for her personal safety.

The request centers on an alleged incident May 23, when Carpenter says Applegate came to her front door and tried to open it after trespassing onto a neighbor’s property. According to a declaration from Los Angeles Police Department Detective Peter Doomanis, Applegate was confronted by a security guard and struck the guard. Ring doorbell footage submitted with the filing shows a man identified in the request as Applegate at Carpenter’s front door and being confronted by a security guard with a flashlight, NBC News reported.

Court documents say Applegate refused to leave and claimed he knew Carpenter and that she was expecting him. Carpenter called that claim “outrageous and entirely false.”

“[He] fabricated the outrageous and entirely false claim that he personally knew me and that I was expecting him. This was a complete lie,” Carpenter wrote, according to the BBC.

Police arrested Applegate on suspicion of misdemeanor trespassing after the May 23 incident. Carpenter said in her declaration that he returned to the neighborhood the next two days. She alleged that he parked his Toyota Prius nearby, reclined his seat to make himself harder to see and engaged in “deliberate surveillance” and “harassment” before leaving when police responded.

Carpenter’s security personnel later determined that Applegate had been parking in the neighborhood and moving “progressively closer” to her home since roughly April 20, according to the restraining order request cited by NBC News.

“His delusional insistence that he knows me and was expected by me is indicative of a dangerous, delusional, and irrational fixation on me,” Carpenter wrote.

Doomanis, described in NBC News as a threat management expert, wrote that Applegate had “developed a disturbing and irrational fixation on” Carpenter. In his declaration cited by the BBC, he said the pattern “reflects the hallmarks of a fixated, obsessional individual” and was “consistent with well-documented patterns of stalking behaviour that pose a serious and escalating risk [to] victim safety.”

NBC News said it could not find contact information for Applegate on Monday and that it was unclear whether he has a lawyer. The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The BBC described Carpenter, 27, as a Grammy winner and one of the world’s biggest pop stars, with top-three hits in both the U.S. and U.K. including “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” “Taste” and “Manchild.”

The sources reported different dates for upcoming proceedings. The BBC reported that a follow-up hearing on the restraining order is set for June 17 and that Applegate is due in criminal court the next day over his trespassing arrest. NBC News reported that police submitted the May 23 case to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office for a charging decision and that a court hearing in that matter is scheduled for June 18.