Tori Spelling delivered much-needed details of her decision to file for divorce from Dean McDermott during the first episode of her newly released “Misspelling” podcast.
Spelling, 50, called McDermott, 57 — and left him a voicemail — within the first 10 seconds of the debut episode, released on Monday, April 1.
“Hey, it’s T. I know you’re working. Can you call me? It’s important,” she could be heard saying. “Everything’s fine. The kids are fine but call me please bye.”
After hanging up the phone, Spelling told listeners that she “just filed for divorce” after 18 years of marriage. “I just got word from my lawyer that it’s public,” she added. (The estranged couple shares five kids together, Liam, 17, Stella, 15, Hattie, 12, Finn, 11, and Beau, 7. McDermott also shares son Jack, 25, with ex-wife Mary Jo Eustace.)
News broke on Friday, March 29, that Spelling and McDermott’s marriage had finally come to an end. Their date of separation was listed as June 17, 2023, the same day he initially announced their split in a since-deleted Instagram post.
About 10 minutes into the podcast episode, McDermott called Spelling back — and listeners heard her side of their conversation. (Elsewhere in the episode, Spelling noted that TMZ called her lawyer after they obtained the divorce filing. They were the first to break the split news on Friday.)
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“I hate to do this to you while you’re in the middle of you’re going to work and everything. They’ve done it,” she told McDermott, referring to the divorce filing. “It’s just the formality. It’s like a one sheet you check off and next you’ll have to sign it. You have a lawyer? Wait, it’s going to be spun what way, that I had enough of you? What do you mean?”
She added: “If it’s about that, ‘who files first, the other person’s wrong,’ I feel like I deserve to file first then. Well, I mean you basically put it all out there with Daily Mail, like you said, everything that you’ve done to me over the years. So, I think it would make perfect sense that it’s followed up that I would file. Those are things I would never have divulged to anybody, and you did.”
Spelling was referring to a bombshell interview McDermott did with the Daily Mail in November 2023, in which he admitted to inflicting “a lot of pain” in their marriage.
Despite the divorce filing, Spelling still told her estranged husband, “I love you,” before hanging up the phone — and seemingly holding back tears.
“Wait, that’s it. Oh, my God. I’ve never felt more alone in a room full of friends doing a podcast,” she said. “F–k. I’ve never felt more alone in 50 years.”
Keep scrolling for more revelations from Spelling’s debut “Misspelling” podcast episode:
Why It Took So Long to File
Spelling admitted she wanted “this fairytale romance” in her marriage. Initially, she told a friend that when Liam and Stella were “old enough to undo their own car seats” she would leave McDermott. Then, she got pregnant, and this conversation happened three more times.
“It shouldn’t have made it 18 years,” Spelling said about the marriage. “I think he would say the same thing if he and I had a real heart to heart. … It would’ve been over a lot sooner.”
Spelling also admitted that McDermott “always threatened” to file for divorce throughout their relationship.
How the Kids are Doing
Spelling discussed her kids’ “very distinct personalities,” revealing that her eldest daughter, Stella, has been the most worried about her and McDermott’s relationship over the years.
“Stella was always the one, since she was 4 years old, if she would hear us argue — back then it wasn’t loud and we tried to keep it separate and it wasn’t bad back then — she would hysterically start crying and she would run in and she’d say …. ‘Are you going to get a divorce?’ And it just hit me hard,” she recalled.
Her Kids Being ‘Shamed’ at School
The actress also voiced concern for her kids in the wake of the divorce filing.
She explained that Stella told her: “People already talk about us at school. They know you and they know the family, and they read the press and now, you’re doing a podcast.”
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Spelling recalled students at her kids’ school thinking that they “live in an RV” because of a past vacation the family took.
“She literally had someone come up to her at school and be like, ‘Oh, are you in the school district? Or where [is] your RV parked? Because you live in an RV with your mom, right?’ She was like, ‘That was summer vacation.’ We rented that, like every other family, and drove up the coast and camped,” Spelling said. “They were like, ‘Oh, we thought you were homeless.’ So, she was shamed, but she was like, ‘Imagine what it’s going to be like at school when you file for divorce.’ I mean, teens know how to manipulate you.”
Recognizing McDermott’s Red Flags
“I like saying that I like to make dresses out of red flags and then proceed,” Spelling admitted. “There were definitely red flags and he had anger issues, and that started when we were dating four months in.”
Spelling recalled that their “relationship was never the same” after they started having kids.
“I became completely focused on the kids and kind of left him in a way, and I get it. It doesn’t excuse his behavior and everything he did and how he handled things and I’m not minimizing his part in this and how his lack of sobriety did affect me and the kids for years and years and years, and I’m really happy that he’s sober now. But our relationship definitely changed to the point where I felt like I was just in this alone with the kids.”
Spelling said that “he was an extra set of hands,” but she “was the parent.”
The idea of red flags was revisited elsewhere in the podcast episode. Spelling said McDermott had a “temper, which often was fueled by alcohol.”
McDermott Was a ‘Character’ in Her Life
“Sometimes I think I created the character of Dean. All those Prince Charmings I wanted when I was young, I created this character. He had a lot of those qualities, but we did our reality show, and the first one was fun,” she shared. “Any bad stuff that would happen or fights or anything, they would edit. Women everywhere, I would hear them be like, ‘I wish I had a Dean.’ And I was like, if you only knew.”
Therapy Didn’t Help
Spelling said she and McDermott started couple’s therapy after Stella was born. While she wanted to get “deep” with their conversations, they were “talking about two different things.”
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He focused more on her having “too many animals,” being “a hoarder” and “messy” rather than their actual issues.
Revisiting the June 2023 Split Announcement
Spelling was at former Beverly Hills, 90210 costar Jennie Garth’s house before McDermott posted the Instagram split announcement.
Once she got home, he started drinking and they got into a fight. Things “escalated.” When he made a comment about “dog s–t” she “f–king lost it.”
