‘90210’ Star’s Husband Reveals Alcoholic Rages ‘Petrified’ Family

Beverly Hills 90210 star Tori Spelling’s ex-husband, Dean McDermott, opened up to The Daily Mail about how his violent, alcohol-induced rages left his family “petrified” and ultimately cost him his marriage. Over the summer, McDermott completed a stint in rehab. He’s currently residing in a sober living facility alongside eight other men.

Despite describing his marriage to Spelling as “a dream come true” and “a total fairy tale,” McDermott couldn’t resist the pull alcohol and prescription drugs had on him. He said by the end of their marriage, he was “drinking a fifth of tequila every night, seven days a week, and a [taking a] handful of narcos by myself with a beautiful family in the other room.”

The Mind Over Murder actor’s downward slide wasn’t sudden. His first marriage, to Mary Jo Eustace, was also marred by his addiction. In 2013, McDermott entered rehab after Spelling discovered an affair between her husband and a younger woman.

“The first time through rehab, what triggered it was a pretty public event that we all know about. And this isn’t an excuse, but it was fueled by my alcoholism and drug addiction,” McDermott said. “The shame was so great with that because it was everywhere—everybody knew what a piece of shit I was.”

Come 2017, matters hadn’t improved much. The couple was experiencing financial strain, and Spelling’s insistence on sleeping with her pets (including a chicken and a pig) chased McDermott out of their shared bedroom.

“I just isolated more and more and more,” he recalled, “and she isolated with the kids.” McDermott noted that by the end of their time living together, he and his family “were roommates.”

Matters came to a head in June, when amidst a haze of substances McDermott fired off a since-deleted statement on social media announcing his divorce from Spelling. After not speaking for several months, the pair recently began communicating via text messages. McDermott hasn’t seen his estranged children since June, when a mold issue necessitated he move them out of the family home.

Of the unceremonious end to their marriage, McDermott remarked that, “Life just happened to us…It’s tough having kids. It’s tough living in this town, tough, having financial problems. It’s just really tough. I’m not making excuses. I certainly had my hand in it in the dissolution of the relationship. But yeah, hasn’t been easy. Nothing in life is easy.”