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How did I find myself in debt? I guess the best answer is that I didn't think about it. I was born into a millionaire lifestyle, and I had no idea how to live any other way. If my mother liked a shirt in a catalog, she'd order it in six colors. I went from that to working on 90210 and for a while I was able to maintain that lifestyle. My friend Mehran calls those the glory days. He says, "We'd walk into Dolce and Gabbana; they'd close down the store, and bring out the champagne. You'd drop fifty thousand dollars."
I love clothing, but I had to change where I shopped. I became the girl who looks for the bargain. I still have a serious weakness for Christian Louboutin shoes. But you can wear shoes over and over again! Adjusting my lifestyle has been, for the most part, a good learning experience. Dean and I lived in six places in two years. If we didn't have furniture, we slept on a mattress. Love made all the other stuff unimportant.
I came from money. But I didn't exactly expect to be supported. Eventually people who were pretty high up at my dad's office started telling me he was starting to fade. They thought I should talk to him about his will before he was any further gone.
It felt gross and wrong. But at one of our lunches I said, "I hate to bring this up, Dad, but I know you love me and Randy, and I know you'd want to protect us and your grandchildren. I'm not asking for anything, but I just want to make sure you know what your will says about me and Randy." He said, "Let me find out. I'll talk to my business manager."
The next time we had lunch, he said, "Babe, I talked to the business manager. You and Randy are totally set up. You're getting just under a million. You'll be fine." He believed it.
I realized in that moment that my father knew nothing about money. He would buy my mother a million-dollar necklace for Mother's Day without blinking. At the same time I believe he was totally sincere when he thought I was beyond set for life. I thought, God, okay. It is what it is. In May 2006 Tori and Dean were married. In the coming months, her father died, she learned she was pregnant, and she got word about her father's will.
I wasn't surprised to learn that $800,000 (actually, a little more than half that after taxes) was coming my way. Still, to be completely honest, I was let down when I heard that nothing had changed. Come on, if your father had $500 million, wouldn't you hope for, oh, just a paltry $10 million? I cried a little bit, and then I felt guilty and disappointed in myself for crying. I hadn't been banking on the money. But part of me (the pregnant, hormonal part) wanted to enjoy being a mom without having to work my butt off. Even if I worked really hard, I'd never earn the type of money that he could have just given me. Oh, boo hoo. I know.
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