Misspelling with Tori Spelling and iHeartRadio podcast. So I slid into your DMS, yes, which is so bizarre, Like I don't know. People always think it's like you know someone that's looking to hook up, like I always talk about like, oh, that guy slid into my DMS and here I am. But it was, like mom based, it was when you announced you were pregnant, So mom to mom, I slid into your DMS to just say hi, and you responded, and we've carried on this DM relationship until May. And
who is it that news? You didn't know? You didn't watch Beverly Hills. I know, no, right, but you're she.
Is a huge fan. She's actually in the living room right now and I can meet her. You do she she is not ready, but hey, Crassy Torri wants.
To meet you. Oh, tell her to take her time. We can talk and then she could come in when she feels.
Ready because I don't know get ready.
So I gosh, I don't even know where to jump in. Like I feel like I came into this interview interview. It's not an interview, it's a podcast chat amongst friends. But I came into this thinking, gosh, what do I even talk to her about like, I feel like, do you feel talked to death? God? No pun intended, excuse my slips. I make jokes when I get nervous about talking about your past.
I mean I think that, yeah, I mean I'm tired of talking about it. I think that, like at this point, you know, my my parole ends day after tomorrow, so on the twenty sixth, finally will be free woman to the max.
And then you guys are gonna come visit me in La.
I mean I would love to, We would love to. But yeah, I mean I do feel like everything is sort of like talked about, and I've entered a completely new phase in my life where it's like that was my past. I am completely moving forward with everything in my life, with with motherhood and and I just have so much going for me that like nobody got anywhere in life by kept on looking in the rear view mirror. So I'm like, I just.
Have my eyes forward, definitely. And I mean, you you don't want that to define you. No, there's so much more to any human than what they're past has offered them up. But do you And this sounds really so and I'm sorry, but do you feel like, and god, I don't even want to liken this to my situation, but I'm trying to find ways to connect with you obviously like your future. Do you feel like that kind of opened up doorways in a positive way? I mean,
let's talk positive about the situation. There's so much negative, you know, it's kind of like, you know what, I have been an actress and my father didn't open the door and give me a platform, give me a TV show? No, maybe not. Do you feel like in is there any positive to what has happened that you are given opportunities now, maybe to help others, maybe to you know, fulfill dreams that you thought. Gosh, everyone's focused on my past, But is there a good way?
I mean, I feel like I've been I've been trying to do that for so long. When I was in prison, it was so vocult to be able to sort of rebrand myself because it's like I was still in the middle of living in it. And now that I'm entering into a new phase in my life, I feel like, only now could I start to kind of look back and say, you know, yeah, I mean I came from you know, I became well known from a tragic situation on both ends. It's like, I'm a victim and I'm
a perpetrator. So getting out of the shadow of that is the hardest thing. To be able to have a platform to which to stand on that is respected. It's like I feel like it is only whenever I can break out of that mold that defines me. And it's like, I don't want to be defined, but unfortunately I am. The reality is I am, And so what is the course of action moving forward? It's taking accountability and saying, you know what, yes, I I am branded a murderer and I did do the crime. I did do the time.
Owning up to my actions is what it's all about and saying I'm not perfect, I made wrong choices, but this is what I'm doing today to try to move forward.
I can never.
Bring back the life that was taken. I can never unhurt the people that were hurt, but I can at least try and do some good with it. And I've been trying to break out into advocacy and I've been trying to figure out what that looks like for me. What am I passionate about. I'm passionate about prison reform, I'm passionate about the fact that there is. So you know, if if anybody's watched my show, they can tell that
I've gone through it with haters online. So I'm kind of stepping into the realm of saying, hey, I'm experienced in being cyberbullied and I don't think it's right and there are some things in the system that need to change to have better preventative measures from cyberbully. So it's kind of like, I have a voice, now, let's figure out a way to direct it somewhere in a positive manner. And I wouldn't have this platform if I didn't, you know, do what I did. But it's like, you can't change
the past, so what can you do? Mold it to where you can better other people in the world and do something with that voice?
And do you I don't know, you might already do this. Do you talk to people or are you an advocate for Munchausen proxy like working with people that have that.
I want to talk to several victims that have shared their story. That's why I open myself up on social media is because there has been so many people that have come to me and then shared their story on a personal level, and I didn't blast them out. I'm like, it's your story to tell. If you want me to, you know, bring more awareness to your situation, I will do that. But whatever you say stays between you and I. That's just that kind of safe space that I have
created for people. But I do want to get more involved with organizations, and I have already had several conversations with munch House and biproxy experts to kind of lead me in the direction and also make me more knowledgeable. Because I can only go on my personal experience. There are so many different people that have gone through much House and biproxy but had a different experience.
Sorry, I think I said the wrong name.
Oh you're fine. It's a more hard word to say.
So it is definitely, but you believe, like deep down your soul is that what your mom had.
I do. I do. Even the doctor the doctors had put in the medical records, mother is suspected having MUCHILDS and biproxy. And that's that's Unfortunately, where the system is failing is there's not enough education about mu Chius and biproxy. There is probably about a paragraph that doctors learned about in school. It's not enough.
I mean, it's a mental illness. I feel like we're now in a society in twenty twenty five that everyone is so focused on mental health. It's kind of it is strange that that's there's not more light given to that, right do you I've read that it's like the heart like not curable. Do you feel like she could have been cured?
I feel like I feel like the system failed her just as much as the system failed me. Because you have to remember, she grew up in the you know, eighties, and you know, I was born in the nineties, and mental health wasn't talked about as much as it is now, and so her own family did not recognize those signs. They just kind of was like, Okay, she's the black
sheep of the family, she's a little weird. They just categorized her like that and didn't look into the fact that she did have trauma, those things that happened to her in her childhood that caused her to have trauma and it went unchecked. She was supposed to be on medication, she did not take her medication like she should have or at all once we moved to Missouri.
So that's interesting. I wouldn't know why she didn't, Like she was all about giving you medication and giving but she didn't take her own. And did you know she was on medication at the.
Time when I was you know, I grew up with a mother that said that she saw you know, shapes and shadows and her voices. So it's like I knew that she had a lady that would come to the house. And this is when we lived in Louisiana, So I may have been thirteen, fourteen years old, and I knew that there was a lady that would come to the house to talk to her, but I still didn't understand the scope of you know, who that lady was. And
she was a therapist and her psychiatrist. So when we moved to Missouri, she didn't follow up with her care and she wasn't put on her medication because she wasn't seeing any plenty anymore. And so it's like that is where the system failed her. Is I feel like if she had been put on medication, if she had the support system that she needed, I feel like things would have been very different.
Okay, And at what point did you realize that you weren't sick?
I mean Honestly, I always knew that I could walk, and I talked about this in my book, My Time to Stand. I knew that I could walk, but it's kind of like growing up, my mom said that I had all these medical issues starting off with sleep apnea, then a seizure and disorder from birth, so from infancy, so growing up it was sort of distorted what I knew that I had and what I didn't know. It wasn't until my later teen years that I started to kind of piece together, well, I haven't had a seizure.
I don't I don't feel like I have epilepsy. And then it wasn't until I got arrested that I knew the full scope of I'm perfectly healthy.
And what happened, like what happens now? When you feel sick, do you doubt yourself?
No?
I mean.
Typically I just get like the common cold, but I am I am hesitant to like go to doctors I feel like And I was the same way in prison. I wasn't one of those inmates I would go to the sick bay for anything. I'd be like, Okay, I have to really like have run titus or something to want to go to the.
Doctor because they failed you exactly.
It's just I'm a little mistrusting.
I understand. I just don't understand how doctors didn't see that you were healthy, or if they did, she would just take you to another doctor.
Yes, so that is very common, which with parents with Munchausen by promiss. So all the test results were coming back normal, So it is very questionable and I still question it to this day, like why is the test results coming back normal? But you're going off of just what my mother said alone?
Right? And do you feel congratulations on Aurora? Oh?
Thank you. Christ's looking after right now. I was like, I do this podcast, Please look after Herry.
We'll get you back to her soon. Has she been sick at all so far?
No, she hasn't. It's funny because it's like for me, I'm hesitant with doctors, but for her, I'm like I feel like I'm normal. I'm like, if she's sick, I'm gonna take her to the doctor. If she's fine, there's no reason too, you know. And also it's like I'm not doing it alone. Ken is also there with me, So that's kind of like that I'm grateful that I am at that point where It's like I'm not projecting my mistrust on dry or care.
Yeah, I'm curious when she gets sick. I'm not gonna what she doesn't, but just anything in common, if that is, will be a trigger for you. I don't know.
I know that I definitely ask a lot of questions. I'm kind of like, you know, is this shot needed? Is this normal? Is this standard? I definitely question a lot. I asked a lot of questions.
You're a mom, then take everything that's happened to you out like your normal, especially it's your first born. Yes, oh my gosh. I remember my first two. They would just barely like sneeze and'd be like, oh my god, we have to go to the emergency room. Like it was always a big deal. And I know, you know, becoming a parent it puts into such perspective our parents. I know. I felt like when I had my first baby, I felt differently about my mom because I saw like,
oh wow, this is everything changed. Yeah, did your relationship with your mom was put into a different light when Aurora was born?
It was in a pretty impactful way. I she was probably about three weeks old to three weeks old, and I was sitting in the rocket chair and I was feeding her and I was folding her and I just love looked at her. And as I was holding her, it was like I got hit by a truck of emotions, anger, disappointment in my mom looking at how like how much I love my daughter. I'm like, I could never imagine how anybody could hurt, harm or do anything to their child, their own flesh and blood like what my mom did
to me. And it was like I felt like I had hit a level where I was coming to forgive her. I was coming around to claim myself as healed. And that happened, and then I'm like back to square one, and I'm just like I never I'm choosing to never let my daughter go through anything like what I went through.
I feel like when any of us have kids, we definitely the mother daughter relationship is one of the most complicated ones. Like it's definitely different than a mother and their son. As you'll see, Do you want more kids? I do?
I do, but we will have to use IVF for our next one because the one medical condition that I actually do have, it's called micro deletion one Q one point one. So it's just a long word for I'm missing a small piece in each of my first chromosome, so that is something that could potentially be passed down to every child that I have. My child, every child that I have, has a fifty to fifty shot of having it. Aurora has been tested and she came back negative,
thank God, so it was not pastor her. But as a preventative measure, we will go through IVF for our next one.
Do you want a boy?
We do want a boy girl?
The perfect formula. I know I had one boy, one girl, and then I kept going and going and going, and you know, at five, I like, if I could just have one more, have six, I'd have three boys and three girls. But yeah, like a big family you want just too?
Probably just too I say that now. You never know what the future holds, but just two for now.
On the horide, do you think you will forgive your mom one day? If you've been close to it? Do you think it could get closer?
I think close to it, so I think I could get back there. I think the important thing that brings me closer to forgiveness is you know the fact that she was a victim, but not only my victim. She was also victimized by her grandfather, I mean her father, which was my grandfather. She suffered child abuse herself. I feel like that humanizes her in my mind, and I'm
able to relate a little bit on that level. So looking at her, not as you know, the mother that abused me, the mother that kept me from having a normal life, looking at her at a different angle is I think what's going to get me there? And I talked to a Munchausen by proxy expert and the one question I kept having that I never knew and didn't have any clarification on is was my mother aware of what she was doing? Was there that culpability there? And
the expert told me yes, she was aware. People that have that are aware of what they're doing. So unfortunately, that's just something that, like now, I have to kind of cope with and that's a hard pill to swallow.
Do you feel the need to defend your mom?
Yeinning I did. In the beginning. I kind of was like I had just got arrested and I didn't want my mom's memory tarnished. I was still in this kind of I hate her, I love her friend of mine, So it was like I didn't want people to look at her like a bad mom, because I'm like, there's nothing left of her but a memory. You know, at the end of it all, there's nothing left but our reputation, our legacy, and what is hers. So it's like, I don't like it when people call her a bad person.
I'm going to say she was a perfect person.
She wasn't.
But I also it's not their place, and then it can go what I went through to talk about my mom? Does that make.
Sense one hundred percent? Because everyone has an opinion, and when it's your own human you feel the need to defend on any level. I mean, obviously what you went through is extreme, but everyone, like I think personally, if someone like, uh talks shit about your family member, you're like, no, no, no, wait wait wait.
No, it's mine.
I can feel that way because I go through it, have been through it. You it's like off limits. Yeah, definitely. Did you obviously you're on text and everything. Did you ever look up online symptoms of what your mom had? I didn't because while she was still alive.
No, I didn't, because it's like I thought my mom was like literally just you know, I just about that she was just that way. I tossed it up like she's a controlling, helicopter bad mom that you know, it's just so controlling. So I didn't really know that there was a diagnosis for it, and then that other moms and other caregivers and other parents have this. I didn't know it was a thing.
Was there anyone in your outside circle slash inner circle during that time? Like did you have friends? Did you have people you talked to?
Was there was, you know, people that were friends with my mom and there were people that, you know, I felt like maybe I could trust on a certain level, but then the fear of would they tell my mom would always my mind. As for like other peers, I didn't go to public.
School and your homeschool.
I was homeschooled.
To homeschool you, h Yeah.
She homeschooled me from like like a young age, so maybe eight years old, and then there was no schooling after that. There was like no public school, no homeschool, nothing after the age of eight, and I got my ged in prison.
That's so interesting because I've watched everything on you and not a stalker, the whole world just watch everything on you. I want to read your book, but it's just you are so well spoken.
Thank you, Thank you that.
I was curious about the schooling because it didn't from what's been put out there, it didn't appear that you did. So I was like, you're so smart and so informed and to speak so well that I thought, oh, for sure she did. So you got your GD in prison.
Yes, I had to start from the ground up, because when I got to prison, I basically I knew how to add small numbers. I knew how to like write, read, write, but my problem was not good. It's like I would I would make a grocery list and I would spell spaghetti, spaggy spaggymules and stuff like that. So I had to learn multiplication, division.
You know, all of it from the ground.
Wait till you start getting into polynomials.
I had to learn all of that. Now that you're I mean, your parole is up in tomorrow, day after tomorrow, tomorrow, sorry, forty forty eight hours, My goodness. Would you ever go to college?
Like to to go to a trade school. I've always had an interest in hair, makeup, nails, so I would love to do something with a cosmetology license. There is a cosmetology school. There's actually a couple in New Orleans that I have looked into.
So maybe that would be amazing. By the way your nose looks bomb, thank you. I'm very happy had rhinoplasty before. Was that just a game changer? It was? I thought you looked beautiful before. It really doesn't.
Don't even try lie, It's okay.
I'm not lying. Okay, your profile was iffy. But other than that, I look back on it. I you were great.
Because like I liked you know, I did so much mind the front. It was just the side profile and I always been teased because of my nose. And finally I was like, you know what I used to you?
You didn't see anybody? No, my mom used to oh my mom.
Yeah, back into trauma. But yeah, my mom would point out things on my body that you know, and just like make fun of me. So yeah, but.
What else was trauma? Oh my gosh, our mothers can fuck us up so much. I know what else did she say? Wasn't that was not good on you?
Well, it's like my my my thighs. She's to say I have thunder thighs and stuff like that.
You know? Is that just her generation though? And not knowing how and no filter no.
No, but like for Aurora was like, but no, I mean it might be like it's just one of those things that like, I don't know, I think that my mom's holy Emmo was try and take away any sort of femininity, any sort of I feel pretty, I feel confident. And that's how like she would knock me down is by keeping me in this world of like I'm not pretty, I'm not sh enough, I'm not this. And so coming out of prison, I had like, arely any self esteem.
And also like coming out of prison, I got on social media and there was all these people judging me and basically making me a celebrity overnight, and I'm like, I'm not a celebrity. I'm not I don't think of myself as a celebrity.
I'm just a person. And I didn't expect to come out to such a big platform and so trying to do like little cute selfies and stuff like that, I've learned really fast that there are people that will not take their shoe off to tell you you have a bag ass.
Nose, Like yeah, so social media is like evil evil? They can yes, it can be a very positive experience in empowering and you can create your own platform. And but there's that side to it, the haters, and it's just and it's hard not to read. You know, people saying stay off social media, just don't read comments. It's like, well, I want to read comments because take the bad out of it. I want to read the good. I want
to see what I can do. Like you know, there's that so exactly and now you wrote a post or I'm trying to find it. It was on what date? Was it? On June ninth? You wrote what I thought was a beautifully written post.
You the post is actually meant for the next day. I ended up posting.
Early on the tenth because.
It would have been yeah, so it would have been on the tenth, but I just write the post early. But oh, you look very nice.
I'm not trying to make this about me. But I commented on that post and I wrote beautifully said with the heart. I mean, I get haters left and right, but the amount of haters I got from writing that comment what like someone making people are making TikTok videos like I can't believe you. Yes, what are you doing? And I stand by it. I didn't say in the comment whether I agree or disagree with anything that's happened in your past, and it's that again, that's not my
place to agree or disagree. That's your story. But I was just saying I thought your words were beautiful and it was eloquent and very powerful, but it's just I mean, what you get is ten times but it was just one little inkling of like, wow, oh you're jumping on her bandwagon, right, And so many people called me and we're like, oh my god, take down that comment. And I was like, no, I don't want to, Like, I stand by what I said.
And thank you for that.
I looked.
I did look because you know, I kind of wondered, you know, if you would take the comment down or not. I wouldn't have blamed you if you took it down. But I remember when I had posted a video and Demi Lovado had posted a comment and she got just as much backlash and she ended up deleting the comment. And I don't blame her for it because it is kind of like, I am a controversial figure and I don't want anyone to receive backlash just because little old me.
I don't want that for anybody. So it's kind of like, if they do take it down, I understand, but it's because volumes if you keep it up.
Yeah. Yeah, when I connect with someone, I connect with them, and yeah we connected. And I totally stood by that. So whatever, people can say what they want to say. They don't know. That's the thing. Nobody knows because no one's walked in your shoes exactly. Oh my gosh, what are you to do in forty eight hours?
I know, I know. Well, I do have a party get together with some of my friends, so I'm excited about that. We're gonna go to New Orleans. I get to have my first alcoholic beverage. I've never drank in my life.
So, oh my gosh.
Because on your own parole, you can't drink alcohol.
You can't drink, you can't write it.
I'm like, do you have any recommendations, because I'm like, I don't know what to get.
He was, Oh my gosh, what should you get? I don't know, because you don't even know if you like fruity, I don't know if you like go easy on me. Oh my god. So the first thing I ever had was called a pink lady, okay, which is so old school. I think i'd seen it in like some nineteen fifties like movie like I don't know, and I don't really know what it was, Okay, And the second thing was like a whiskey sour because my mom always drank it. Okay, did your mom drink?
She didn't know. She may have when she was younger. I don't know, but she didn't.
I'm not asking in a bad way. I'm just I've.
Never seen her drink. Huh. Didn't smoke, didn't drink.
Yeah. I think a lot of times we tend to have a beverage that is like something reminiscent of our childhood that we grew up with. Not that you'd want to reflect on that with a nice freedom drink, but I don't know. Try a whiskey sour all right.
I will try that for you.
Because it almost tastes like a fruity with a sour. Do you like sour?
I like sour patch kids.
Seem Okay, that's my favorite. Okay, Okay, Oh, so you're a sour candy not a chocolate person.
I do like chocolate too, but it has to be milked chocolate.
Some milk chocolate exactly. I'm very skeptical of people that like dark chocolate. I don't know.
It just tastes funny.
It's nice, it's not.
Yeah, it reminds me of those like x lax laxatives. I'm like, you want to eat for fun.
That's funny. You should try a shream chocolate. Just kidding. I don't know anything about that. I actually don't. But licorice okay, not really red or black if you had to pick one, red, okay. Well, I'm liking all your answers, Like we're like super similar. Okay, savor or sweets.
Ah, that's sweet.
We just became on friends. We were were such fast friends. Now again