Tori Spelling, 47, is giving her Instagram followers some examples of the struggles she went through in regards to her appearance during her teen acting years, including when she played Donna Martin on Beverly Hills, 90210, in a new bittersweet Instagram post. The actress admitted she was bullied over her looks, including her eyes, by “internet trolls” and it brought on feelings of emotional distress and a lack of confidence that still affects her to this day. In addition to a lengthy message in the post, Tori included various photos of herself, including a recent selfie in which she’s looking up, a photo from her days on 90210, and her 1997 magazine cover of Rolling Stone.
“My Dad always said ‘Your eyes are the windows to your soul’… I’ve never forgotten that,” Tori began, referring to her late producer father, Aaron Spelling. “Because of that belief my Dad rarely let his actors wear sunglasses in a scene. He believed their eyes conveyed everything. All emotions. I’ve carried that motto thru my life.”
“I always look people in the eyes. I hold their gaze always. I never look away. I’ve taught my kids to always show people respect and look them in the eyes when they are talking to them,” she continued before opening up about her previous insecurities. “I used to hate my eyes. 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.”
She added, “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.”
Tori then went into details about how and when she started to change her perspective of herself and realize her eyes were an “asset” instead of a negative part of herself. “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,” she explained. “My eyes made that photo. They showed the emotion I was ‘feeling in my soul’ in that picture.”
The blonde beauty concluded her revealing message by talking about her current self-image issues and how she still tends to “only show one side of her face”, something she’s asked about by social media followers. “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,” she shared. “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,” she pointed out. “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.”
She also advised the readers of her post to think before they decide to write a negative comment to someone about their appearance, something she also heartbreakingly touched upon when talking about how her own two kids, Liam, 13, and Stella, 12, have been bullied in a post she shared in Feb . “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,” she wrote. “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.”
Tori’s final sentence in the message referenced the first picture in the series of photos she posted of herself and proudly admitted that she “loves” her eyes now and they make her “uniquely me.”