Tori Spelling didn't know her Dean McDermott would take to Instagram to announce their divorce after they had their "final blowout fight." But in some ways, she was glad that he did, she admitted on the latest episode of her podcast misSPELLING. On June 17, 2023, Dean, 57, shared a statement about their divorce after the fight: "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," he wrote at the time.
"I didn't know he was putting it up," Tori, 51, explained on her podcast.
Of course, Tori was surprised that Dean shared the post on his own without telling her. But she also had a more unexpected reaction: a sense of relief. On her podcast, she explained that she had been unhappy for some time and had contemplated leaving, but she's not sure that she would've done anything about it.
The Instagram post made it easier in a way because prior to that, when she thought about leaving Dean, she would doubt herself.
"I gotta say, when I saw that post — inside, I was like, 'Oh, thank God,'" Tori admitted. "Because … I don't know if I could have done it. I want to do it. I wanted to be strong enough."
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Dean later apologized for the post and deleted it. Tori said it was more like a "cry for help" from Dean, and he went into treatment for addiction afterward.
"He was reacting emotionally, and he was still drinking and, you know, he was in that spiral," Tori explained.
Tori filed for divorce on March 29, 2024. However, she listed their date of separation as June 17, 2023, the night of their final fight and Dean's unexpected divorce announcement on Instagram, per People.
In April, Tori spoke about the big fight in more detail on her podcast. That night, Tori said, Dean said something to her that "he knew would really be hurtful to hear."
They had just stopped at Wendy’s, where Tori ordered a baked potato. "This guttural scream came out of me," she said, detailing her response to Dean's hurtful comment.
"And I was like, 'F— you!' And I took my most prized possession in that moment, my baked potato. It was loaded to perfection, and I smashed it on the ground," she said.
"I’ve never seen a baked potato fly like that," she continued. "Let me just say it was a wall-to-wall potato. It was on the floor. It was on the oven. It was everywhere."
Embarrassed, Tori left the room and locked herself in a bedroom. Dean eventually entered the room through a different entrance.
"He came in, and he was very, very upset, and he said, 'I want a divorce, this is over,'" she said. "And I said, 'OK. Great. OK.' I mean, he’s threatened that a million times."
The threat never amounted to anything before, but that time, Dean announced the divorce on Instagram for everyone else to see. After Dean posted it, Tori felt "free."
