Tori Spelling, Dean McDermott Didn't Fake Cheating Scandal for Reality TV Show

Spouses, who have four children together, have drama and problems that were "not fabricated to sell show" to Lifetime

By Rebecca Macatee Apr 24, 2014 9:02 PMTags
Tori Spelling, Dean McDermottMichael Kovac/Getty Images for John Varvatos

Reality TV isn't known for always showing people at their best, but faking an extramarital affair for the sake of your show—particularly when there are children involved—would be pretty low.

Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott were accused of doing just that with True Tori, their brand new docu-series that premiered Tuesday on Lifetime, but this is no fake out. Sources tell E! News the family's "drama and problems are definitely real."

Jezebel questioned whether Tori, 40, and Dean, 47 went so far as to "fake a cheating scandal" to land a TV deal after their long-running Oxygen series Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood ended in 2012. A source tells E! News, however, that Dean's two-day affair while he was away from home, as well as his voluntary stint in rehab for sex addiction, were "not fabricated just to sell the show."

Tori's been tweeting up a storm about the purported realness of her reality show, writing, "This isn't another scripted story. This is my lif....Every tabloid always got it wrong. Hear the real story..."

But why would she be choosing to air her family's dirty laundry on TV? "I needed the chance to tell my own story," Tori wrote on her blog. "At the moment, I don't know if it will have a happy ending. But I need to get my voice back, and this is my way of doing that."

-Reporting by Lauren Mendoza, Marc Malkin