Tori Spelling Says She Felt Relief When Dean McDermott Asked for Divorce: 'I Didn’t Have the Balls to Leave'

"I could breathe deeply," the actress recalled on the second episode of her podcast

When Dean McDermott told Tori Spelling he wanted a divorce in June 2023 — and subsequently, posted about it on Instagram without her knowledge — the Beverly Hills, 90210 actress didn't feel sadness, she felt relief.

"I looked at [his post] and I'm not kidding you guys, I felt like this giant rock had been lifted off my chest," Spelling, 50, explained on the second episode of her MisSPELLING podcast, which dropped Monday, April 8. "I could breathe deeply, and I was like, ‘Oh my God. He said it. He said it, so now I'm free.'"

As Spelling noted in MisSPELLING's debut installment, though she and McDermott have been married for 18 years, she'd wanted to file for divorce for "like... 15 years."

McDermott, meanwhile, had allegedly threatened a divorce "1 million times," Spelling said on episode 2.

Related: Tori Spelling Says She Hopes to 'Take the Hard Out' of Divorce from Dean McDermott: 'It's Evolving' (Exclusive)

"I don't think I've ever threatened that, like, ever. And there were times where I desperately wanted it," Spelling said. "But, like, I would never throw that in someone's face if I didn't actually mean it."

"I didn't have the balls to leave," she added, recounting on her reaction to seeing McDermott's post. "I couldn't do it and he did it. [I thought] 'Now I can move on. He's put it out there. Let's go. Yes! I needed this,' you know? Like, I couldn't do it myself."

Related: Tori Spelling Breaks Silence About Divorce from Dean McDermott: 'I've Never Felt More Alone'

The actress went on to reflect on how her marriage was long speculated about in the media, so much so that it kept her with McDermott longer. The couple — who are parents to kids Liam Aaron McDermott, 17, Stella Doreen, 15, Hattie Margaret, 12, Finn Davey, 11 and Beau Dean, 7 — had a romance that famously began when they cheated on their spouses (Charlie Shanian and Mary Jo Eustace respectively) after meeting in 2005 on the set of the TV movie, Mind Over Murder. They went on to marry in 2006.

"[The tabloids] have been writing our story and the outcome of our marriage since we got married," she said. "They literally were like, 'It won't last six months.' Then I had something to prove. You know? 'Go big or go home. Screw you. I'll make it last 18 painful years. ... You could pull up 50 million tabloids that say, 'Tori Spelling and McDermott Divorcing' — and this was, like, two years, three years into our marriage. They've been writing those stories since then."

"It's just, like, life imitating art," Spelling added. "I don't know. Maybe we finally took a page and listened. Like s---, if everyone thinks we should get divorced, maybe we should. They were correct."

Related: Tori Spelling Says Dean McDermott Is Seeing Their Kids Again: 'They're Happy with the Work He's Done'

In McDermott's Instagram post, shared on June 17, 2023, he wrote: “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, 57, ended up deleting the post the next morning — a decision he made, according to Spelling, at the request of his their eldest daughter, Stella, who was upset that the divorce news was public before they were able to privately deal with it as a family.

“Stella started crying," Spelling recounted on her podcast. "She was like, ‘Do you know how embarrassing [it is for] my friends to read this?' And then I was like, 'Oh my God.' And I felt so shamed again. I was like, 'Oh, no. I didn't think of it that way. I was just like, I'm free.' And she was like, ‘He needs to take this down.'"

Deleting it didn't stop the headlines from coming, though the family "just went on as if nothing happened," Spelling said.

"I was just like, 'Oh, please let us get a divorce,'" she added. "If it was up to me, he wouldn't have taken it down, but it hurt the kids, so they wanted it down."

Related: Tori Spelling Admits She Could See Herself Getting Married Again: 'I Do Love Planning a Wedding'

An official divorce filing didn't come until late last month, the same day Spelling recorded episode 1 and 2 of her podcast. She cited irreconcilable differences as the reason behind the breakup and listed their official separation date as June 17, 2023 — the night McDermott announced their split on Instagram.

Between that fight and the day McDermott filed, Spelling and their kids moved out of their house and "never went back." (The home had a mold problem, Spelling said, so they "had to get out of the house anyway.") McDermott — who has struggled with alcohol and drug abuse for nearly three decades — packed up the rest of the place before checking into rehab, where he remained for 40 days. He moved into a sober living home in Los Angeles afterwards.

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As McDermott has focused on his sobriety, Spelling admitted there's been moments where she questioned, "Should I have stayed?"

But she's asked herself: "What are the long term ramifications on the children of staying in a marriage where they have a family — they're in the same house, It's all intact, you move fluidly — but there's so much unhappiness and so much anger?"

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