Dean McDermott and Tori Spelling Were Married to Other People When They Met
Tori Spelling’s fans have their eyes trained on her Instagram. Renewed interest in the Beverly Hills 90210 star has nothing to do with a new project. Instead, followers have been interested in the state of her marriage. Over the weekend, Dean McDermott shockingly posted a divorce announcement on his own social media and then deleted it. While McDermott did take the post down, the damage was already done. The announcement amassed hundreds of comments and thousands of likes before it was pulled from Instagram. On Sunday, Spelling ignored Father’s Day completely, leading to further speculation that the couple’s marriage was in trouble. Reported problems in their union are nothing new. Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott have weathered multiple divorce rumors over the years, but did you know their early relationship was pretty controversial, too? Spelling and McDermott were both married when they met.
Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott met on the set of a TV movie
Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott ran in very different Hollywood circles, and then a TV movie brought them together. McDermott and Spelling were cast in the TV movie, Mind Over Matter together in 2005. They left their respective spouses in California and headed to Canada to film.
It didn’t take long for their on-screen chemistry to move off-screen. By July 2005, the duo were sleeping together. By that fall, they had ended their prior relationships, and both filed for divorce. In July 2006, they were married in a private ceremony.
Dean was married and in the process of adopting a child when he hooked up with Tori
McDermott was very much married when he headed off to film with Tori Spelling in Canada. McDermott married Mary Jo Eustace in 1993. Together, they moved from Canada to California and welcomed their first child in 1998. When McDermott headed off to the set of Mind Over Murder, he and Eustace were in a fairly good place.
Atleast, it seemed that way. The couple were actively in the process of adopting a child together. When he and Eustace split in October 2005, shortly after his affair with Spelling started, McDermott bowed out of the adoption. Eustace and McDermott’s divorce was finalized in February 2006. She adopted her daughter solo the following year.
Eustace has spoken openly about the end of her marriage several times over the years. While she and McDermott successfully co-parented their son, they couldn’t manage a business relationship. The former flames appeared briefly on a podcast together, but McDermott later left. According to Page Six, Jack McDermott, the couple’s only child together, later claimed Eustace put a “strain” on the family. According to the publication, the younger McDermott said in a now-deleted social media post that McDermott walked from the project because of Eustace’s negative comments about Spelling.
Tori Spelling was married to Charlie Shanian while filming with Dean
McDermott wasn’t the only one in a committed relationship when things got hot and heavy. Spelling, just like McDermott, was married when she walked onto the set of the TV movie. Spelling married Charlie Shanian in 2004 after about two years of dating. The couple’s star-studded wedding is rumored to have cost $1 million.
Shanian, a Massachusetts native, admitted that he and Spelling were mismatched from the beginning. The actor and writer didn’t grow up like Spelling and certainly didn’t seem particularly fond of her famous parents. In a 2007 article for GQ, Shanian delved into the icy family dynamic he experienced while with Spelling. He said Spelling’s famous father, Aaron Spelling, was interested in reliving his glory days. He died in 2006. According to People, he said Candy Spelling, Tori’s controversial mother, “…liked to cast an icy glare and pretend to forget how to pronounce my name.”
In the same article, Shanian explained exactly how he learned Spelling had been cheating on him. He revealed Spelling asked him to meet her at their therapist’s office after an argument. The hired counselor dropped the bombshell on him. Spelling has talked, at length, about meeting McDermott and how it led to the end of her marriage to Shanian. While Spelling wrote in her book, Stori Telling, that she agonized over cheating on Shanian, he sees things as slightly colder and more calculated.
Shanian filed for divorce in October 2005. A judge signed off on the dissolution of their marriage in April 2006, just three months before Spelling married McDermott in a private ceremony in Fiji. While Spelling has leaned into the spotlight since the end of her first marriage, Shanian has gone in the opposite direction, opting to stay hidden from the public eye.
