Tori Spelling - Spelling It Like It Is

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Doing belly shotskids kiss the baby not knowing if its a boy or a girl (soon-to-be Hattie).

(Courtesy of Dean McDermott)

Stella hugging her cousin Simone at the baby shower for baby Hattie.

(Courtesy of Bill Horn)

My gusband, Mehran, and I have a much-needed girlfriend day! Here we are watching our last movie before Hattie was born the next day.

(Courtesy of Tori Spelling)

Me in my DIY hospital gown with my three babes, currently unaware that one month from this photo Id be preggers again!

(Courtesy of Dean McDermott)

To my complete family

Dean, Jack, Liam, Stella, Hattie, and Finn

And...

Coco

Mitzi

Minnie

Ferris

Chiquita

Missy Snuggles

Phyllis

Maxine

Rosie

Princess

Sully

Benny

Cinnamon

Oreo

Trix

Hank

Totes

Juliet

Large Marge

Jackson

Phyllis Diller

Sugarplum

Ginger

Blueberry Fish

Raspberry Fish

T he cover of Star magazine said, Toris Lies Exposed. Ooh. What could it be this time? Was I cheating on my husband with someone who looked exactly like him? Had I been switched at birth with the true non-heir to the Spelling fortune?

But no. When I opened the magazine all I found was just a rehash of Star s favorite story: Dean and I were breaking up. He was about to walk out on me. Blah, blah, blah. Heard it all before. Its a story theyve written so many times that Im pretty sure their article list is on an annual cycle. If its March, Dean and I must be on the rocks.

Not to judge, but I cant help feeling like the decent, moral, cream-of-the-crop journalists at Star magazine arent earning their keep. If youre going to lie, lay it on us! Go big. Make up something good and juicy. Disclose that our chicken Coco is actually Paris Hiltons stolen poodle in disguise. Or that Chelsea Handler has been right all these years: I am actually a man. (These are examples of creative lying, Star , and you can have them for free. Be my guest.)

There was no substance to the article. An insider was quoted as saying, She always goes on and on about how strong their marriage is, but the truth is that its all totally fakeher marriage is a sham. The article said that Id kicked Dean out. Hed packed his bags. The accompanying photo on the front cover was of Dean carrying two shopping bags. One of them was from a childrens clothing store. If you looked closely, you could see where Id been cropped out of the picture. A bit of my leg was next to his. I recognized our outfits and where we were. That was me and my husband, Christmas shopping for our children. Way to go, Star , you got us.

Its funny (and annoying) to read that my love for Dean is a lie. My love for Dean is very real. Like everyone else we have our strengths and weaknesses, our ups and downs. Thats what real love is. Im thick skinned, though. Must be all the scar tissue from the plastic surgeries Star thinks Ive had. The stories dont really get under my skin. But the story Star missed (surprise, surprise) is that Ive lived my life in public on a reality show for six years, and with any public life come manipulations, exaggerations, and, well, realities behind the edited version of that life. I hate to give Star any attention for their feeble attempt at capturing my life. But my reality show, Tori & Dean, is over after six seasons on Oxygen. Its a perfect time to go behind the scenes the way poor Star never could and fill in some of the missing pieces.

ITS BEEN AN especially challenging couple of years. On Tori & Dean we moved houses constantly. At first, to me and Dean, my recurring need to move seemed driven by changes in our family. We needed more space because our stepson was moving back from Canada. Then we were having another baby. Then our house felt too big for us, and we wanted more land for our animals. And I wondered if I was subconsciously looking for another design project. Those were our reasons for moving, and thats what we said on the show. But as my real estate obsession persists, its starting to look more compulsive. Moving is expensive, and Ive put us in a precarious financial situation. Im no stranger to that, but usually I drum up some work and correct our course. This time, when I should have been working, I was flat on my back in a hospital bed, and we dug ourselves deeper into the hole.

Tori & Dean showed us fighting and then renewing our vows, but it didnt tell the full story of Deans and my ups and downs. Theres a reality behind that reality. I want to share our hardest period, and the real moment I fell in love with my husband all over again.

People know that our fourth child, Finn, came right on the heels of our third, and the press showed cute pictures of my pregnancy bump and the look how quickly she slimmed down after-pictures. I talked in the press about my health issues surrounding the pregnancy, but nobody really knows the impact it had on me and my family.

Our family is complete now: me; Dean; our four beloved children; my stepson, Jack; and a somewhat changing menagerie of pets and farm animals. The show that tracked our family is over, but we go on changing (houses), growing (our suburban farm), and getting into unexpected scrapes (paparazzi-fleeing car accidents). Im the first to admit that I havent figured things out yet. But at least I tell it like it is.

T he first sign that something wasnt exactly normal happened in the middle of work craziness. On Thursday, February 10, 2011, in the middle of doing photo shoots for my about-to-be-published party-planning book, celebraTORI , my gay husband (whom I call my gusband) Mehran and I were scheduled to fly to Tampa. I had an appearance on the Home Shopping Network (HSN) to promote our jewelry line. I had started freaking out about the plane trip a week in advance. (That part was completely normal.)

Every guest who appears on HSN to sell their products agrees to do a middle-of-the-night segmentto pay your dues. Then you appear again on a prime-time block the following day. Its a brutal schedule on a normal dayIm sure Suzanne Somers and George Foreman didnt relish hawking their goods in the dead of nightand my fear of flying compounded the stress, but as I was soon to find out, this wasnt a normal day. Mehran and I left L.A. in the morning, transferred in Dallas, and arrived in Tampa around dinnertime. I went on the air at two in the morning. The next day, after meetings with HSN, I was back on the air from four to six P.M .