It took them a very long time, but Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott finally made the big announcement about a year and a half ago:
They were getting divorced after nearly two decades of marriage.
“It’s with great sadness and a very very heavy heart that after 18 years together and 5 amazing children, that @torispelling and I have decided to go our separate ways, and start a new journey of our own,” the actor wrote in an Instagram statement on June 17, 2023.
Spelling then filed in March 2024.
Why did she wait so long?
Why did she stick with McDermott after he cheated in her and why didn’t the couple split up earlier?
“On my part, at least, the want of kids,” Spelling said on the December 10 episode of the Misspelling podcast, explaining in further detail:
“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.”
Plenty of people stay in a marriage for their kids, of course.
But it was evident a long time ago that this relationship was doomed, as McDermott himself said last November, taking a tremendous amount of responsibility at the time.
“All Tori’s ever done to this day is want me to be happy and healthy and I inflicted a lot of damage and pain on that woman,” McDermott said about 13 months ago.
“Alcohol made me feel good enough. I started feeling good enough until it got to a point where it didn’t – it ended up in isolation.
“It ended up with me drinking a fifth of tequila every night, seven days a week, and a handful of narcos by myself with a beautiful family in the other room.
“That’s what it led to and that’s what led to the brokenness and to what happened between me and Tori.”
While the actress said this week she thought she was making a decision for the sake of her five children, she realizes now why that was misguided.
“My parents were married over 25 years, up until my dad passed,” she said of Candy Spelling and the late producer Aaron Spelling.
“I saw a family always together, and so it was different and I always thought that, as bad as things might be between my partner and myself, it’s better to have their dad in the house, than in a different residence.
“I think that kept me in the relationship far too long, and it ultimately did a disservice to my kids.”
The former spouses share Liam, 17, Stella, 16, Hattie, 13, Finn, 12, and Beau, 7.
Spelling says now that she’s glad the couple pushed through problems many years ago… or else Beau would not be here.
“I think he and I both were in a place where we might have separated or divorced before Beau was born,” she added on her podcast.
“But we worked on our relationship, stayed together and I’ll never regret not leaving then. I’m sure he wouldn’t either because we wouldn’t have had Beau.”