The Beverly Hills 90210 alum credits 13-year-old daughter Hattie for encouraging her to finally make the decision to leave her longtime husband after one pivotal conversation.
Tori Spelling is giving credit to her middle child for helping her get to the point where she knew it was time to break things off with her longtime husband Dean McDermott.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum broke it down on the latest episode of her misSPELLING podcast, where she recalled the conversation with her young daughter — and the one question that changed everything for her.
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“It got to the point where it was worse for the kids to see us together,” said Spelling of the months leading up to their separation. “We could no longer hide what was happening, the fights.”
Adding context — but not excuses — Spelling says a lot of it was to do with McDermott’s alcoholism, saying, “He was an addict going through a lot, and a lot of it was taken out on me.”
As a parent, no matter how you might try to hide things from your kids, they see and know often more than parents might expect. Aside from Hattie, McDermott and spelling share four other children: Liam, 18, Stella, 16, Finn, 12, and Beau, 8.
She recalled a time after McDermott was put on psychiatric hold for suicidal ideation after he made headlines for cheating on her in 2013, which she went in to great detail about here:
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When she told the kids dad was “off healing,” she said Finn asked, “Because of his anger issues?”
He then added, per Spelling, “I hope they have surgery on him and they take out his anger.”
Admitting that Hattie also saw what was happening, Spelling lamented, “I didn’t like the person I was, trying to raise strong humans and just taking it and taking it.”
And while she said her desire to keep the family unit together for the kids, no matter what she had to endure personally, it was one of those kids who offered her another perspective.
“The want of kids, just always wanting their parents together, I think kept me from making what was outwardly a better decision for them than what they saw between two partners,” Spelling admitted.
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And so, during a serious conversation, Spelling says her daughter asked her, “Have you ever considered what it would be like to be with someone else and not dad and get treated right?”
Spelling was also quick to emphasize that this wasn’t a matter of Hattie choosing her mom over her dad, either, insisting that her daughter “loves her dad” and actually told her mom she was “scared” to bring up the conversation at all.
Detailing what went down in the first episode of her podcast, Spelling said she and McDermott separated in June 2023 after a “beast-like” fight. In April 2024, she filed for divorce.
McDermott celebrated a year of sobriety last summer, posting on July 1 a picture of a blue sobriety chip with words of thanks for his sponsor and everyone else helping him celebrate the milestone. He has since moved on with girlfriend Lily Calo.
