Women's Health November 4, 2025 0 Comments

Tori Spelling’s Hidden Battle: The Shocking Truth Behind Her Eczema Struggle That No One Saw Coming

Ever wonder what it’s like to live with a skin condition so persistent it feels like your own arms are on fire—yet you’ve got a camera rolling, a life to live, and people watching every move? Tori Spelling, beyond the glitz and glam of her iconic role as Donna Martin on Beverly Hills 90210, has been grappling silently with eczema, a condition that’s far more than just a pesky rash. At 52, Tori and her teenage daughter Stella are breaking the silence, revealing the raw truth behind their battle with this often invisible, but deeply consuming, chronic skin inflammation. It’s a story of flare-ups triggered by the pressures of life, the emotional knockdowns, and the fierce determination to find relief—not just for smoother skin, but for peace of mind. If you think eczema is just “skin-deep,” think again. Here’s why Tori’s journey might just change how we all see and speak about inflammatory skin challenges. LEARN MORE

5 min read

She’s best known as Donna Martin from Beverly Hills 90210, but Tori Spelling has lived fifty lives since the wildly popular show went off the hair. She’s hosted her own podcast, is the author of multiple books, became a mother, and, never one to shy away from sharing her life publicly, appeared in at least four reality television shows based on her life. But Spelling has also been quietly battling a private health condition that has dramatically impacted her life. A condition she’s not spoken about publicly—until now.

The actress, 52, reveals that she and 17-year-old daughter Stella have both been struggling with eczema, a common, sometimes debilitating, chronic inflammatory skin condition. For those who aren’t familiar, eczema can seem like a minor annoyance. But Spelling likens the sensation of her flares to the feeling of her arms being on fire—and the more she scratched, the worse it got. “I’d be filming and I was scratching so badly that I had to change my wardrobe because I had scabs all over my arms that were bleeding,” Spelling shares exclusively with Women’s Health. “I was horrified.”

And Spelling’s eczema wasn’t only skin-deep. “I noticed when I had flare-ups, I became really anti-social and made excuses to not go out,” she says. “I would be like, ‘Oh, I’m just tired, I have kids, I don’t feel like going out.’ But then I’d realize, no, it’s more than that. So, it was wearing on me from an emotional and mental standpoint.”

Now, as part of Arcutis Biotherapeutics‘ Free to Be Me awareness campaign, Spelling is opening up about the emotional toll of living with eczema, and why finding a treatment that actually works has been life-changing for both her and her daughter.

The vicious cycle.

For Spelling, eczema showed up during one of the most stressful periods of her life. “I was going through my first divorce and I had also just created a new TV show called So Notorious that I was starring in, so there were a lot of great things happening and some not-so-great things happening. It was so much pressure on me from all sides,” she says.

That’s when her first major flare-up hit. “It was like my arms were on fire, and I didn’t understand why,” she says. “I didn’t know if I had been stung by a bug. And then it just felt like the more I itched, things started to appear,” Spelling says. The flare-up was so bad that production on her show had to shut down for a day while she went to the doctor and got diagnosed.

Since being diagnosed with eczema, Spelling noticed a clear pattern: Stress triggers her flare-ups. “I tend to have flare-ups every time I get significantly stressed,” she says. “I can almost know if things emotionally and mentally get too much, I’m like, oh, here’s what’s coming next. It’s gonna be a flare-up.” And there’s research to back up Spelling’s hunch: A 2022 review links having eczema with a higher risk of depression and anxiety and, on the flipside, psychological stress seems to make the inflammatory skin condition worse, more another study found.

A mental toll.

Living with a visible skin condition means Spelling has become hyper-aware of people’s reactions. As a self-proclaimed “hand talker,” Spelling could almost feel the eyes on her skin. “People just automatically will look at my hands, and I would always wonder, ‘Do they see scabs on my hands?'” she says. At photo shoots, Spelling got into a habit of requesting only long sleeves. “When you’re going through a bad flare-up, putting anything on it is excruciating, so [you can’t] even cover it with makeup,” she says.

The mental spiral would hijack entire conversations. “I would lose focus on what was being said because I always thought [my eczema was] all they were looking at.” It wasn’t until relatively recently that it all came to a head. “I felt like my life kind of exploded two years ago,” she says. “We had black mold in our house and I split from my husband and went through a very public divorce—suddenly I was a single working mom of five. The weight of the world was on my shoulders, privately and publicly. That’s when it became so bad, and I was desperate for something that worked for me, because nothing ever had.”

A mother’s pain.

As difficult as managing her own eczema was, watching Stella battle the condition made it worse. Spelling’s daughter had dealt with eczema since she was little, and she also has it on her scalp. “The bullying got to the point where she literally didn’t want to go back to school,” Spelling says. “She missed a huge part of sixth grade because she would just be lying on the couch, covered in a blanket, and she would just be hysterically crying that she did not want to go to school.”

As a mother, Spelling felt helpless—and desperate for a solution. “I kind of had given up hope for myself, but I was like, my kid’s young, she has her whole life ahead of her. I don’t want her not to have solutions. This doesn’t feel fair.”

Finding hope and breaking the stigma.

After years of trying steroid creams to no avail and clearing out pharmacy aisles for something that might work, a dermatologist suggested trying ZORYVE (roflumilast), a non-steroidal topical treatment. “In a couple of weeks after first trying it, I really noticed a difference,” Spelling says. And seeing Stella (who uses the foam formulation on her scalp) get her confidence back was the icing on top. “Stella is a senior now, she’s thriving, she has a great group of friends, she feels good about herself.”

Finding a treatment that actually works has been about more than just clearer skin for Spelling. “Grateful is the word that always comes to mind when I think about finding my own personal solution with ZORYVE for Stella and me,” she says. Now, she wants other people to know they don’t have to suffer in silence. “I feel like so many people deal with it silently, because they feel ashamed, or they think it’s not that bad. But they shouldn’t have to live with it if they can find a solution that works for them,” she says.

Her message to anyone struggling with eczema or other inflammatory skin conditions? Don’t give up hope. “There’s something out there that can work for everyone, and being able to talk about it takes the stigma off,” she says. “Stella inspired me so much seeing her get through it that I really hope that I can inspire other people to normalize a situation where there is hope for, if you can find the solution that works for you.

April Benshosan is a New York City-based writer and editor. She graduated with a Master’s degree in Publishing from Pace University, and her byline appears on LIVESTRONG.com, Eat This, Not That!, Business Insider, MSN, Yahoo!, OK! Magazine, and Travel Squire. In her free time, you can catch April lifting weights, spending time with her pup, or planning her next vacation.

Brian Underwood is beauty director at Women’s Health, where he oversees content strategy for the brand across all platforms, including digital, print, and social. Underwood previously served as beauty and wellness director at Oprah Daily and O, The Oprah Magazine. During his tenure leading beauty content for the Oprah brand at Hearst, stories Underwood commissioned were awarded the Skin Cancer Foundation Media Award and a Fragrance Award for Editorial Excellence (his second). He was the launch Beauty Director of Dr. Oz THE GOOD LIFE, and has held additional editorial positions at Fitness, Organic Style, Good Housekeeping, Life & Style Weekly, and Woman’s Day and has written for Self, Shape, Seventeen, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and many more. Underwood previously served on the Skin Cancer Foundation’s gala committee and as partnerships director of the Trans Beauty Clinic, a New York-based charitable organization that provided beauty services and workshops to the city’s trans community.