How Tori Spelling went from ‘90210’ to living in an RV with her kids
Tori Spelling has reportedly been “struggling monetarily” in recent weeks following her split from husband Dean McDermott.
On top of that, the mother of five has been dealing with a “toxic” mold problem at her California home, forcing her and her five children to move into a cheap motel and now an RV.
Although Spelling is reportedly “doing her best to make things work and take care of her kids,” sources told Entertainment Tonight that the “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum is having a “difficult” time finding a place to live “because her financial situation is not great.”
However, this isn’t the first time she has dealt with financial woes.
Despite growing up in a ultra-wealthy family and making big bucks during her time as a reality TV star, the actress revealed in 2013 that saving money was never her strength.
“Google thought I was worth fifteen million dollars,” she wrote in her memoir “Spelling It Like It Is.” “Fifteen million dollars! I didn’t have one million.”
“We had some income here and there, but no savings apart from our retirement accounts. I have a terrible habit of going into denial about my finances. I think that if I don’t deal with it, then it’s not real.”
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Keep scrolling to find out more about how Spelling went from living in luxury to calling a California campground “home.”
Family Drama
Spelling was born into a life of luxury, yet her upbringing wasn’t always glamourous.
Despite growing up in a mega-mansion nicknamed “The Manor,” the reality TV star never had a great relationship with her mother, Candy Spelling.
“Even when I was young, I just knew,” Tori told ABC News in 2008. “I knew from the beginning … it was complicated.”
In fact, the pair’s complicated dynamic was brought to light after her father, Aaron Spelling, died in 2006.
At the time of his death, Tori wasn’t on good terms with either of her parents, who didn’t approve of her new relationship with McDermott.
According to Candy, their strained relationship was actually what “killed” the legendary producer.
“My daughter one day decided that she wasn’t speaking to my husband, myself and my son, and that’s how it’s continued for the last four or five years,” Candy told 94.7 WMAS-FM’s Kellogg Krew in 2009.
“And it was sad. That’s what killed my husband, actually. He just didn’t want to live after that. He [had] just done everything he could possibly do for his daughter, and she wanted no part of him once he couldn’t do anything for her.”
“90210”
Despite leaning on her parents for financial support, Tori landed her big break in the ’90s when she got cast as Donna in “Beverly Hills, 90210” — which her dad produced.
During the show’s 10-year run, the actress was able to make a comfortable living for herself, yet that quickly changed once the show went off the air.
To get herself out of debt, the heiress launched a reality show called “Tori and Dean Inn Love” in 2007 and released several different books about her life.
Inheritance Issues
Things got even worse between Tori and Candy after Aaron left his wife a fortune of $600 million. Meanwhile, the reality star and her brother, Randy Spelling, received just $800,000 in his will.
“I think part of me, in the back of my head, maybe hoped it would be different,” Tori told ABC. “But I hated myself for hoping it would be different because I didn’t want to take advantage, I didn’t want to be that girl who needed, or wanted, dad’s money.”
Yet the siblings felt slighted that their mother never gave them more than their initial inheritance, leading the mother and daughter to go nearly a decade without speaking.
However, in 2016, Candy revealed that she was helping her daughter pay off some of her mounting debt.
“I’ve been helping her out, I’m paying all her bills now,” she told TMZ at the time. “I’m not paying any back payments, just for the house and the kids’ school and the food.”
Despite seemingly burying the hatchet, Candy was recently slammed for not helping her daughter and grandkids amid their current housing “crisis.”
Spending
Tori has never shied away from being honest about her lavish spending habits, which she grew accustomed to as a child.
In fact, part of the reason that she was allegedly given such a small inheritance was because her parents thought she lacked the self-control to manage anything more.
“She would close a store and drop $50,000 to $60,000,” Candy said of her daughter in a 2014 interview with the New York Times. “I never did anything like that. She just went crazy.”
However, Tori joked in her memoir “Spelling It Like It Is” that “when you grow up silver spoon, it’s hard to go plastic.”
Despite her own onscreen success, her reality TV salary still wasn’t enough to bankroll her flashy lifestyle, which included numerous multimillion-dollar homes, foreign cars and over-the-top birthday parties and vacations.
“It’s no mystery why I have money problems. I grew up rich beyond anyone’s dreams,” she wrote. “Even when I try to embrace a simpler lifestyle, I can’t seem to let go of my expensive tastes.”
Nevertheless, the heiress once said that she would “rather be bankrupt” than just be known as “the rich little girl” whose parents always had to save her.
Debt
The “BH90210” star’s financial struggles have been making headlines for years.
In January 2023, Radar Online reported that the actress allegedly owed Uncle Sam more than $1.3 million in state and federal tax liens.
The news came less than three years after Tori settled her $88,000 American Express credit card debt.
In 2016, the financial institution filed two separate lawsuits against the reality TV star — one for the $88K sum and another for nearly $38,000.Â
That same year, she and McDermott were slammed with a federal tax lien for $707,487.30 in unpaid federal taxes for their 2014 bill alone.
Then in 2017, the former couple had to pay City National Bank $220,000 after being sued for failing to make monthly payments on a loan.
To seemingly help pay off her debt, the actress brought back the original “90210” crew to reprise their roles for the “BH90210” reboot. She was reportedly making $70,000 per episode.
The show, which premiered in 2019, aired six episodes and was canceled after only one season.
Divorce
In June 2023, the “Chopped Canada” alum announced in a since-deleted Instagram post that he and Tori were getting a divorce after 17 years of marriage.
The decision followed years of split rumors, with sources close to the couple telling Page Six that it came “out of the blue.”
“If this had happened a year ago, it would’ve been expected because things were terrible between them,” an insider shared. “Sure, they still had their disagreements and didn’t always see eye to eye, but the past six months things had felt good between them.”
The pair, who share sons Liam, Finn and Beau, as well as daughters Stella and Hattie, reportedly did not sign a prenup.
The former couple’s split has seemingly added extra pressure on the mother of five as she continues to deal with the ongoing mold infestation.
Tori evacuated her family from the home last month after noticing that she and her kids were getting “so sick.”
In fact, before the family moved out, the reality TV star revealed that the mold was “slowly killing” them after months of visits to the doctor for unknown health issues.
