In the Beverly Hills 90210 reboot, BH90210, Tori Spelling‘s storyline seems to be ripped right from the headlines. Of all the cast members to return for the re-imagining of the former teen drama, Spelling’s plot is the closest to the actress’ true life. There are still a number of differences, however.
Videos by Suggest
The On-screen Tori Spelling
On the show, Spelling has six children with her husband, Nate. The couple’s reality series, Tori And Nate: Spelling The Beans, is canceled, leaving their family in financial peril. As added stress, Spelling’s husband turns down an opportunity for work that he considers beneath him. To make things even more complicated, the BH90210 Spelling also had to deal with Brian Austin Green, who took her virginity during the original run of the show.
Once the cast reunites for the 30th-anniversary celebration of Beverly Hills 90210, Spelling gets an idea that could possibly solve her money problems. She pitches the idea of a reboot of the popular ’80s teen drama to Fox, tapping into her late father Aaron Spelling’s producer skills to bring it all together.
The Real Tori Spelling
In reality, Spelling is married to fellow actor Dean McDermott. The couple only has five kids together, which isn’t too different from their fictionalized selves. Spelling and McDermott, much like their BH90210 counterparts, also starred in a reality series that was eventually canceled. The title of the series, which ran from 2007 to 2012, wasn’t quite as hokey as the onscreen parody, though. It was simply Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Spelling was also one of the executive producers for BH90210, which was another straight from reality pull. It’s also true that Spelling has gone through her fair share of financial turbulence.
That’s where the similarities between Spelling’s current home life and her on-screen counterpart’s end. Unlike her TV husband Nate, McDermott is Spelling’s “biggest supporter,” she told Daily Pop host Morgan Stewart. He’s also been fairly active in his career, appearing in NCIS, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and hosted the cooking competition show, Chopped Canada. There’s no evidence, based on his lengthy resume, that he’s ever turned down work.
As for the plot line about Spelling and Green, there is some truth to it. Spelling did admit to sleeping with Green while shooting the original show during an appearance on Celebrity Lie Detector in 2015. It didn’t quite go the way it did in the fictionalized version, though, which Spelling told McDermott. “My husband asked me the same question the other day after he watched the show. I’m not kidding,” adding, “I was like, ‘Well, there’s some things that are heightened. Little threads of truth. And some things, completely fictionalized.'”
The blurring of lines between reality and fiction is exactly what Spelling was going for. “All of the characters are fictionalized versions of ourselves,” Spelling told E! News. “We kind of wanted to leave it to the audience to figure out what’s real and what’s heightened.” The combination of reality and heightened drama was well-received, though the show only lasted a single season. Spelling is probably happy that her real life is nowhere near as “heightened” as it was on the show.