Just when you thought Spelling vs. Spelling couldn’t get any more venomous, mama Spelling pens a poisonous open letter to her famous daughter Tori in an effort to keep the war alive.
Mission accomplished!
I won’t re-print the note Candy Spelling had TMZ.com publish yesterday (you can read the anti-love letter in its entirety here), but I can’t help but address some of the choicer lines, as they do illustrate the essence of the mother-daughter tightrope walk and the sad legacy both women are leaving behind for their children/grandchildren.
Candy begins by calling her 36-year-old daughter “middle-aged” (a pointed jab to the heart of a Hollywood babe who fears getting old), then proceeds to dig the dagger deeper by insinuating that Tori is a media whore, who is pimping out her children to pad her bank account, via her reality TV show: “Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood.”
The Spelling matriarch further twists the knife by explaining why she didn’t attend her only granddaughter’s first birthday.
“My daughter, Tori’s, two-part season finale revolves around my granddaughter’s first birthday party and how she has made what seems like an agonizing decision to invite me,” Mommy (dearest) Spelling writes.
“A big party wasn’t how I envisioned meeting my granddaughter for the first time; but, hey, this is Hollywood, and my grandchildren have become reality show props, too. At the time I emailed “yes,” I didn’t realize I was being set up for a two-parter, even though it was clear I was being invited to be part of a segment for my daughter’s reality show,” Candy continues.
In the end, Candy notes that she opted not to go. “I decided my first meeting with my granddaughter should be on home video, not primetime cable; so I emailed that I would not be attending.”
Before ending her open letter Candy gets in a few more parting shots at her daughter, who apparently has a propensity to blame her parents for all that is wrong with her life.
Candy writes:
“Back to other reality stars. My husband taught me that the plots have to be fresh and updated. The same old whining gets tired after a while. Enough complaining about what may or may not have happened during first grade or YMCA camp, or what vegetable you were forced to endure, especially when you are privileged enough to be on TV and get paid for it.”
Candy finishes with this doozie:
“Life isn’t just a show. And your families can’t just be props. Make your own season finale without creating conflicts you will regret later.”
Mother-daughter relationships are notoriously challenging, but to have this type of bitterness continuously play out in the public eye is low even for these two.
Interestingly, if you read between the lines of Candy’s letter, it’s easy to see that this mother-daughter duo has a lot in common. Perhaps, that’s the problem: Like mother like daughter… in the worse way.