Dean McDermott recently shed light on how he is working on his relationship with his children after achieving sobriety.
For those unaware, the 59-year-old Canadian actor is the father of six children. He welcomed his eldest child, son Jack Montgomery, with his former wife Mary Jo Eustace in 1998. The couple remained married from 1993 to 2006. He shares sons Liam, 19, Finn, 14, and Beau, 9, plus daughters Stella, 18, and Hattie, 15, with his current wife Tori Spelling, with whom he has been married since 2006.
At Cure Addiction Now’s 3rd Annual Fundraising Evening in Beverly Hills, California, on Monday, November 9, McDermott opened up to PEOPLE magazine about fixing his relationship with his kids after being sober for three years and four months.
Reflecting on his sobriety journey, he claimed that there’s “still a lot of work to do” on his relationships; however, he is now in a “great” place with his children.
The Always and Forever star said, “I think [the work] is going to be ongoing because they’re growing and changing. And I owe it all to recovery and the 12-step program that I’ve gotten to this point, that I could be the father that they deserve and to help them through their challenges, be present and just love them.”
“We’ve both gone through divorces before, and there was a child involved in the first one. And just learned from the mistakes from that one, the mistakes I made,” McDermott stated, alluding to his wife Spellings’ first marriage to Charlie Shahnaian from July 2004 to October 2005.
“So we just got on the same page. We’re not going to make those mistakes,” he said. “We learned our lessons there. So just putting our stuff aside and focusing on the kids.”
“We get along famously, so that really helps a lot. There’s no animosity or anything. I’m over there every day. I take the kids to school, and we have dinners together. So, it makes it so much easier. So much easier,” Dean McDermott explained.
