Tori Spelling’s Son Wondered If He Was ‘Obese’ After Trolls Attacked Family Photo
Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott are teaching their kids to tune out the haters.
The parents of five have faced cruel comments about the youngsters’ appearances multiple times in response to family photos Tori has shared on Instagram over the years.
Though Dean spoke out about being “disgusted” and “horrified” over remarks that the kids looked “fat” and “terrible” in a January snap, he’s now sharing new insight on the topic and its personal impact.
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Dean revealed on his “Daddy Issues” podcast with co-hosts Adam Hunter and Nicky Paris this week that his and Tori’s oldest son Liam, 12, took the unwarranted criticism especially hard.
“Liam picked it up, and that’s when I really went ballistic, because it’s like, you know, it’s gonna happen,” Dean recalled. “He said, ‘Dad, am I obese?’ I said, ‘Look buddy — there’s some sick people in the world … and they need to do stuff like this. They need to say bad things about people.'”
Ultimately, the actor wanted Liam to understand that such negative attention is almost never personal and reflects badly on the person it’s coming from rather than the other way around. Instead, he encouraged his son to be grateful that he doesn’t have to take others down to boost himself up.
“‘Think about it, son. You have a busy life,'” Dean recalled telling the boy. “‘You have school, you got sports; do you think you have time to go on Instagram, scroll through the people that you’re following, and make a negative comment about somebody?’ I said, ‘No, you don’t. You don’t, and if you did, you’d fill your time with something else. So think about how sick these people are that they have to do that.'”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnUo9RVFKxB/?utm_source=ig_embed
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Dean isn’t alone in coming to his brood’s defense, of course. Tori also spoke out after another incident in which commenters shaded the kids for looking “disheveled” in a cute back-to-school pic.
“I am a proud mama bear and I enjoy sharing our family journey with my family, friends, fans and online supportive and loyal community,'” she wrote on Instagram last fall, before delivering a message directly to the trolls.
“For all the individuals on here that felt the need to #momshame and #kidshame me and my children I say, ‘Shame on you!'” she added. “I was raised to believe that if you can’t say anything nice about someone then don’t say anything at all. … Lift others up and you in turn lift yourself up #endcyberbullying.”