Earlier this month, Tori Spelling spoke of pressing on through the holiday season despite, well, everything that has transpired this year.
2023 has not been ideal.
In June, Dean McDermott announced the end of their marriage.
Since then, he has done a lot. But in all of that time, he hasn’t seen any of their five shared children.
An inside source opened up to Us Weekly about the awkward tension between would-be coparents Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott.
“Tori and Dean have briefly spoken,” the insider confirmed.
“But the separation and kids situation are still a bit chaotic,” the source detailed.
According to the insider, things pertaining the kids remain in flux “and are not completely resolved.”
The source confirmed the obvious — that divorce is “very likely” on the horizon for Tori and Dean. They are separated and also dating other people, after all.
“It’s a day-by-day process,” the insider detailed. “And things are not completely amicable.”
While Dean has not had real interactions with his children since his split from Tori in June, he has spoken to them over the phone.
“They haven’t had individual and alone time together in person away from Tori,” the inside source then carefully specified.
Notably, this is a bigger deal for some kids than for others. Liam and Stella re in their mid-teens. Beau, on the other hand, is only 6. These Dean-less six months have been one-twelfth of his entire life.
In June, Dean took to Instagram on one seemingly random Saturday morning to declare that, after 18 years together, he and Tori were over.
This came as a shock to many. On the surface, he and Tori had been doing better than they had in years.
He deleted the post within hours. However, that did not signal a reconciliation.
As it turned out, Dean was under the influence when he wrote it. And this was far from the first time.
“Alcohol made me feel good enough. I started feeling good enough until it got to a point where it didn’t — it ended up in isolation,” Dean shared in a tell-all interview last month.
“It ended up with me drinking a fifth of tequila every night, seven days a week,” he admitted. “And a handful of [prescription medications] by myself with a beautiful family in the other room.”
“My worst memory with Tori is that last fight when I was drunk and angry,” Dean recalled.
“It was the night that I raged against her and the children and I saw the light, the final flicker of the flame go out in her eyes,” he described.
Dean added: “I posted [the split announcement] that because I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t know what to do. I had burned everything down yet again.”
As we reported, Dean sharing Tori’s private pain left her feeling caught “off guard.”
After McDermott’s bombshell interview, a second source told Us that Spelling was caught “off guard.”
“It was a lot of personal information about their family,” an inside source said at the time. “Tori’s been very protective of the kids, given Dean’s rages and outburst.”
The good news is that Dean’s interview didn’t throw his ex under the bus.
Instead, he affirmed that Tori had encouraged him and supported him — which had turned out to be a thankless chore for her.
Dean did spend much of the summer in rehab. He has since moved into a sober group home. It’s where he spent Thanksgiving.
The holiday season is upon us. For some, religious holidays have already come, or begun, or are happening today. Others are still waiting for Christmas. And more or less everyone is waiting for New Year’s Eve.
According to an insider, Tori and Dean’s holiday arrangements “are still to be determined.”
“It’s contingent upon Dean’s healing process and commitment to sobriety,” the source emphasized. “It’s still up in the air at this point.”
Dean McDermott Hasn’t Seen Kids in 6 Months, No Amicable Co-Parenting with Tori … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.