Tori Spelling is opening up about how hurtful remarks impacted her as a teenager. In an Instagram post, the 47-year-old writes that she used “hate” her eyes because of comments people made about them when she starred on Beverly Hills, 90120 from 1990-2000.
Spelling recalls: “When I started 90210 at 16 I was filled with low self confidence. Then, internet trolls (yep we had them back then too!) called me frog and bug eyed. Being put under a microscope as a young girl in her formative years was hard. I spent years begging makeup artists on my shows and movies to please try to make my eyes look smaller. I would cry over my looks in the makeup trailer chair.”
She continues: “Many people ask why I only show one side of my face. Some write hurtful things. Yes, it is a choice. My choice. Because, a vulnerable innocent excited girl showed all of her face at 16 and was eaten alive. Choices about my looks were made for me by nameless and faceless accounts. Words can’t be unread. Cyber bullying existed then and it does now worse than ever.”
Spelling says: “So, every time one of you ask me why I don’t look straight on in photos and videos know why I make that choice. Years of hurtful comments that I don’t even want to share to give them energy. Way worse than bug or frog eyes.”
She says her perception finally changed in the late 90s. She says: “I didn’t start to realize what an asset my eyes were till I did Scream 2 and the cover of Rolling Stone reenacting the iconic shower scene from Psycho. My eyes made that photo. They showed the emotion I was 'feeling in my soul' in that picture.”
Fans feel her pain. Writes one: “you have always been beautiful the ones making the hateful comments are the ones with insecurities and want to place those same insecurities on you.”
Another says: “ou are a beautiful girl, inside and out. I know it’s not easy to forget people’s unkind words, but try to remember those words are coming from a broken place inside of them and ultimately have nothing to do with you. Healthy people build each other up.”
Spelling concludes her post encouraging others to be kind: “Just remember next time that you go to comment on someone’s account regarding their face or body or choices, you don’t know them. They don’t know you. But, their soul will remember that unkind comment. It’ll be imprinted on them. Our memories can’t remember physical pain but we do remember emotional, verbal, and written pain. That said. Here’s me. Straight on. I love my eyes now. They make me uniquely me.”