Dean McDermott doesn’t want to be known as a deadbeat dad.
But since the actor owes $100,000 in unpaid child support, his ex-wife Mary Jo Eustace can’t think of anything else to call him.
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Last month, the 50-year-old’s ex filed a court order for contempt against him because his monthly alimony payments of $1,500 had stopped. While McDermott admits he’s behind on his payments, he wants everyone to know it’s only because he’s having a hard time finding work right now.
Speaking to DailyMailTV, Tori Spelling‘s husband lamented:
“I do not deny that I owe her money. I have tried countless times to work things out with her. She knows I’m an actor, she knew that when she married me all those years ago. The business is up and down. I’m not making a ton of money right now.”
Sounds like the struggle is real for the actor. Not only is he unable to keep up with the interest on his late payments, he can’t handle being portrayed as the bad guy in the press:
“I’m not the guy who is portrayed in the press. I’m a good guy, a great actor, a great dad and a great husband. I’m just a good guy trying to make it in Hollywood. I’m tired of being the whipping boy and for her to get away with this. It’s been almost 13 years, can we move on?”
Hitting back at his ex, he continued:
“I told her upfront I was having a hard time financially. I reached out to Mary Jo to discuss it and work it out. Instead of being a normal human being and working it out with me, she went to the courts and put me on notice├óΓé¼┬ª This is a woman who is trying to exact revenge. She’s constantly in the press, calling me a deadbeat dad and saying these charges are for delinquent child support. They are not.”
Mary Jo, however, sees things much differently. The 55-year-old said she has already written off large amounts of the spousal and child support the struggling actor owed her, but couldn’t ignore his late payments after seeing him galavanting with the Spellings on luxurious getaways.
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In a complaint filed in October, Mary Jo wrote:
“Dean has stopped paying again. In the last six weeks he has been on two luxurious vacations, Iceland and The Four Seasons in Punta Mita.He resides in a 2million dollar estate paid by his mother-in-law Candy Spelling and has no impetus to work. He owes over $100,000 moving forward and I believe he has no intention of paying. He bounces my son’s university rent/tuition and is delinquent in paying therapist bills, while he shops visibly and throws lavish parties for his other five children.”
Damn. She went right for the jugular!
Dean has since hit back at the allegation that his mother-in-law pays for his lifestyle, rebuffing:
“Here’s the thing that makes no sense whatsoever ├óΓé¼ΓÇ£ Mary Jo continues to say that Candy Spelling pays for our life. If that were the case, do you not think that I would have paid Mary Jo off a long time ago? Because I want nothing to do with the woman.”
Yikes. Clearly, these two have a lot of issues to work out.
With a court date looming over their heads, it looks as though the exes — who divorced in 2006 after Dean had an affair with Tori on the set of their Lifetime TV movie — are amicably hashing out their problems.
A less contentious Dean told DM that Mary Jo reached out to him via text message on Tuesday, sharing in an update:
“Mary Jo is being very amicable right now. I don’t know why but all in all, that’s a good thing. I always look forward to working things out amicably because that’s how I think it should be. Relationships don’t work out but there’s no reason why you can’t work on things for the greater good and in this scenario, that is Jack.”
It’s no secret Tori and Dean have their share of money problems. So, it’s good to hear the exes are starting to work together instead of going at each other’s throats.
Like Dean says, sending him to jail for delinquent child support payments won’t do much to help his 19-year-old son Jack — or his five children with Tori, for that matter.
[Image via WENN.]
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