For all of his over-the-top, glossy, sudsy shows about hot Beverly Hills teens and feuding, filthy rich dynasties, even TV’s late super-producer Aaron Spelling couldn’t imagine a plot as far-fetched as his own life and legacy — which now includes his daughter Tori and five grandchildren living in cheap motels and an RV.
The “Beverly Hills 90210” star, 50, and her kids—Liam, 16, Stella, 15, Hattie, 11, Finn, 10, and Beau, 6—made headlines earlier this month for briefly staying at a budget motel.
It’s a far cry from the gigantic, 123-room, $150 million mansion dubbed “The Manor” in Holmby Hills, Calif. where she lived with her parents, Aaron and Candy, and younger brother, Randy, growing up.
Earlier this week, Tori was photographed living at a campground in Ventura County, Calif., with her five children.
“It’s a mess,” says someone who has known both Tori and Dean for years and spent time in some of their homes. She claimed that both Tori and Dean are broke.
While there has been speculation about why Tori’s mother didn’t step in to help, Candy Spelling has a very protective team, who claimed Thursday that Candy found a house for Tori and her family but Tori turned it down.
The Spelling family friend told Pvnew that Tori and her currently estranged husband, Dean McDermott, whom she married in 2006, have no money.
In part, the source claimed, it is because of their penchant for staying in expensive rentals and Tori’s shopping habit. That habit mirrors her mother’s well-documented love of shopping and collecting everything from dolls to Beanie Babies, the source said.
“Their household bills run 100 grand a month,” the source said. “There’s no end to the spending. In 2016 she had a room stacked to the ceiling with boxes she didn’t even open.
“There were clothes stuffed into the bathroom with price tags still on them. Besides her shopping there’s pet care, hospital stays, private schools, you name it. The house was a pit filled with animals like pigs, snakes and ferrets. It’s white trash central.”
But the source also claimed that Tori “needs storylines” in a bid to stay relevant and maybe get another TV reality show. (She and her husband have already starred in several.)
So she “concocts” dramatic situations—like spending the night with her kids in motels and RVs—so the paparazzi photograph her, the source claimed.
The source claimed that is not the only compelling storyline Tori has helped concoct, telling Pvnew that they believed claims that Tori and McDermott made up the story in 2013 that Dean had cheated with a 28-year-old named Emily Goodhand.
The claim was widely aired at the time, with the Spellings using an episode of their show to push back, saying she definitely existed, but no picture ever emerged of the apparent mistress.
McDermott did not return calls and texts from Pvnew. Tori Spelling was not reachable.
“Everything you see is staged by her,” the source said. “She doesn’t exist. They did it for publicity. The two of them fool the media all the time. They construct every story.
“Everything is a lie. There’s no reality to any of it. Tori thinks the poor little rich girl narrative is a good storyline. She thinks she is as talented and inventive as her father.”
But Aaron Spelling’s own storyline, as a bullied but scrappy Jewish kid in heavily anti-Semitic 1920s Dallas, Texas, involved success and triumph, not failure.
It also began as dramatically as any of his characters. Had it not been for the murder of his mother’s first husband by a random stranger who brutally stabbed him in 1911 Texas, he never would have been born.
But his widowed, mother-of-two Russian Jewish immigrant mother, Pearl, proved to be as resourceful and heroic as any future Spelling character when she arranged for the real love of her life, a Polish Jew named David Spurling to emigrate to the US and marry her.
Spurling, a tailor, changed his name to Spelling and they went on to have three sons of their own, Aaron being the youngest.
According to several accounts, including his autobiography, Spelling’s childhood was dirt poor and he and his siblings slept five to a bed.
He went on to become a pilot in World War II and then rose to become one of the most prolific producers in Hollywood, churning out more than 200 series and TV movies – including such 1970s and 80s hits like “The Mod Squad,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Love Boat,” “Starsky and Hutch” and “Fantasy Island.”
He reinvented himself in the 90s with more megahits like “Beverly Hills 90210,” in which Tori played the virginal Donna Martin, and “Melrose Place.”
Spelling died in 2006 at the age of 83, setting the scene for years of public feuding between his wife and daughter that mirrored some of his bitchiest characters on shows like “Dynasty” and “Melrose Place.”
The two wrote dueling memoirs in which they subtly (in Candy’s case) and not so subtly (in Tori’s case) trashed each other while also claiming to love one another.
Aaron reportedly left his two children, Tori and her younger brother, Randy, 44, only $800,000 each at the time of his death.
The bulk of his $600 million fortune went to his wife. Randy declined to comment for this story but by many accounts lives a stable life as a life coach in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two kids.
Pvnew spoke to three TV executives that Aaron Spelling worked with for years who praised him to the skies.
“He was the best,” actress/producer Lynn Loring, who worked with Spelling in the 1980s, told Pvnew. “I am forever grateful. He was a brilliant guy who never got enough credit.”
But the private Aaron Spelling was more complicated, several people told Pvnew.
“The truth as I understand it is that they (Candy and Tori) were both very competitive for Aaron’s attention and he manipulated them both,” one family friend said – echoing claims Tori made in her 2008 book, “sTORI Telling.”
In the years since his death, Candy has often taken the brunt of the blame—although she has openly flaunted her share of odd relationships.
Tori, as well as Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne, accused her of having an affair with with ex-felon Mark Nathanson during Aaron Spelling’s last years; she denied it.
More recently she has struck up friendships with people with colorful pasts like actress Tatum O’Neal and Beverly Hills realtor and “Million Dollar Listing” cast member Josh Flagg.
Candy Spelling declined to comment to Pvnew.
“She called Tatum her ‘substitute daughter’,” the family friend claimed.
Loring called Candy Spelling “spectacular” and a “terrific person” but said she also has some issues. Indeed, in Candy’s 2009 memoir, “Stories from Candyland,” one of Candy’s childhood friends recalled going over to Candy’s home a a child and how her mother was sometimes “not well” and spent many of her days in bed.
“I think Candy is very insecure and gives off vibes people don’t understand,” Loring said. “I think it was difficult to learn to live with all that money. I think she began to be very protective of herself and her family.”
But Candy’s close friend Nikki Haskell, fresh from a trip to Europe last month with Candy, says she is “optimistic” about mother and daughter, saying they are “a work in progress.”
“I like Tori,” Haskell told Pvnew. “I think she’s adorable. At the same time I know she can be difficult. She can be a poor little rich girl. Candy has been very concerned about her but at the same time she told me that things are smoothing out. The lines of communication between them have been up and down but I’m told things are getting better.”
