I’m really enjoying Lena Dunham’s weekly newsletter, Lenny, and it’s giving me a more positive impression of her overall. It was a smart career move for her to put out a feminist newsletter and she’s had some excellent op-eds and profiles, and some gossip-worthy ones too.
In the latest newsletter, Lena interviews Tori Spelling about her career and life. Unfortunately, as they explain in the intro to the piece, the news had not yet come out that Tori was deep in debt and had significant money issues so Lena didn’t bring up that topic at all. That’s a shame because we’ve heard about Tori’s money problems for years and I feel like Lena missed an opportunity here. The rest of the interview is interesting in that Tori talks about her reality show career and plans for the future. She talks a good game but I don’t really buy that she didn’t stage that whole incident with her husband cheating, especially because the other woman was named “Emily Goodhand.” It’s possible they fudged some of it for the cameras or exaggerated for more publicity. Overall though, Tori comes across pretty well. That may be because Lena is such a fangirl. Here’s some of what she said:
On if she ever worried that her reality show would mess up her family
On Tori and Dean, I was the executive producer. I looked at every edit. I basically protected our relationship through that. At first, it was fine, but it was a new relationship for us… All of a sudden, we got pregnant, and then I saw a different side of him. Not that I didn’t love him. But I thought, I didn’t sign up for this. Wait, you didn’t show me this. He said, “If I had shown you that side, you wouldn’t have been with me.” That’s not fair.
On deciding to put Dean’s infidelity on her reality show
When it came out, I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t going away. Everyone said, “This happens all the time. Look at all the A-list celebrities. They used to complain about it. Then they go on and do a big movie and it just goes away.” That’s not my life. That’s not my relationship with my fans. I’m not the type that can just go from talking about everything and then it’s like, “No personal questions,” the next time I do something.
It was honestly my decision [to put the affair fallout on the show]. This was affecting me on many levels, not just the personal level. This is my career; this is, I hate saying it, my brand. All the lines blurred at that point. I obviously ran it by Dean, and if he had been adamant that he didn’t want to do it, I would not have done it. I would have respected that. He just said, “Do what you have to do.” I said, “Will you be a part of it?” He was at that point where he just was at the lowest point. He was in rehab, and he was just like, “I fucked up. I’ll do whatever I have to do to maintain our relationship.” It obviously became something that he was like, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” but at first, he said, “Yes, that’s fine with me.”
On her “complicated” relationship with her mother
It’s because [my mom] had that relationship with her mother. I would always ask my dad, “Why is Mom like this to me?” He would tell me, “She had a really bad relationship with her mom. Her mom was like that with her. There was a lot of competition. It was complicated.”
I thought, If I have a daughter, I guess it’s just going to pass down. That’s the way it goes. Over time, I discovered it was definitely a conscious effort, and I just reminded myself every day I’m not my mom. I’d think, What would make me different? What’s my instinct of what would make that different? My instinct was touch. I just wanted to hug her and hold her and tell her how beautiful she was and make eye contact.
I get what Tori is saying about her mom raising her poorly, but she could work to build a friendship with her. My mom is a great lady and is not a piece of work like Candy, but we got to know each other better recently and I love her so much, she’s my best friend. Mother daughter relationships can be complicated but you only get one mom. I really get the impression, given some of the things that Candy has said, that Tori begs Candy for money whenever she sees her and that’s one of the main reasons they don’t get along.
There’s a lot more in the full interview, with Tori talking about how she consciously worked to have a better relationship with her daughter than she had with her mom growing up (she says she has to really focus on hugging her and giving her the physical attention that she didn’t get) and Tori’s goals for the future. She wants to be behind the camera producing something instead of continuing to put her life out there. I really wonder how much interest there is in Tori’s life at this point. Then again, if Tori came out and said “I’m a shopping addict, I have a problem” and let us tour all her storage facilities full of crap, I would watch that.
photo credit: FameFlynet, WENN and Getty
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