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It won't be a Mommie Dearest or a non-fiction Father Knows Best, but Tori Spelling has signed a deal with Simon & Schuster to write what she calls her "memoir," due in spring 2008.
Though she's just 33, there's plenty to say.
After all, Spelling had a front-row seat to TV history as the daughter of the late Aaron Spelling, producer of Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Dynasty and Beverly Hills, 90210. She's not merely the child of entertainment royalty; her father put her front and center with a role in 90210, and she has been somewhat notorious in Hollywood ever since.
In her younger days, she could rival Paris Hilton in the partying department. As an adult she has weathered a failed marriage, an estrangement from her mother, Candy, and the loss of her father in June, followed by disappointing news in his will.
Spelling plans to cover all of that in the book but doesn't describe the project as a tell-all. "I feel there's a nasty connotation when you say 'tell-all,'" says Spelling, who finds the term "icky." "That is not what I plan to do. It's not about calling people out or telling negative stories about people. It's how I see things."
Spelling, who is expecting her first child with second husband Dean McDermott in early spring, says she has been thinking about a book for a long time. And when her VH1 series, So Notorious, a faux reality show based on her over-the-top life, was canceled, "I thought, 'I have like 10 seasons' worth of things that happened to me that people would be shocked to hear.' I think I'm a really good storyteller, so why not tell my stories in a humorous, self-deprecating book?"
But do some people (her mother, for instance, who was supposedly outraged by the series) have cause to shake in their boots?
"I don't think so," Spelling says, laughing. "But I guess it's all in each person's perception. I didn't think anyone had anything to worry about with So Notorious." She says she can't control "if people take it the wrong way and not laugh at situations with themselves."
Spelling won't share how much she stands to gain financially and says just that she hopes the book -- to be published by the Simon Spotlight division, which launched with the 2004 best seller He's Just Not That Into You -- "will do amazing, and we'll all see a lot of profits."
How would her father feel about his daughter spilling family secrets? "He knows that I am respectful of the family and will tell these stories in the right way," Spelling says. "I learned my storytelling skills from him. He'd be really proud."
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