Candy Spelling reveals her first husband was gay: It ‘didn’t work out obviously’
Candy Spelling revealed she divorced her first husband, Howard Frederick Leveson, because he was gay.
The theater producer opened up about the brief marriage while appearing on SiriusXM’s “Jeff Lewis Live,” telling the podcast host that she married Leveson in 1963 when she was just 17 years old.
“It sort of didn’t work out … obviously,” she said, noting that she married TV tycoon Aaron Spelling in 1968.
“It turned out that he was a latent gay,” Candy shared, prompting Lewis to inform her that “now we just say ‘gay.’”
After admitting that she didn’t “know” Leveson, who passed away last year, was gay, Candy revealed that her first clue into his sexuality was how infrequently they had sex.
“Maybe in the two-and-half years [of the relationship] we had sexual relations six times,” she said, adding that it affected her self-esteem “big time.”
The two ultimately divorced — a rarity for that era — and she went on to tie the knot with the television producer and welcome two kids, Tori and Randy.
Aaron died in 2006 from stroke complications at age 83, and Candy previously said Tori’s fallout with the family — which stemmed from her receiving only $800,000 of his $500 million fortune — “killed” her husband.
“That’s what killed my husband, actually. He just didn’t want to live after that. He [had] just done everything he could possibly do for his daughter, and she wanted no part of him once he couldn’t do anything for her,” Candy told 94.7 WMAS-FM’s Kellogg Krew.
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The mother-daughter duo made amends in 2022, and the “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum celebrated the reunion by sharing a photo of her, Candy and Randy at dinner.
“Hold those near and dear to you as close as you can,” Tori, 50, captioned the photo. “I love you with all my heart Mommy.”
Tori later told Entertainment Tonight that the dinner came after she realized “life is too short.”
“I feel like life is too short and we forget that,” Tori explained. “I think because life keeps going and so you say to yourself, ‘I gotta make plans with this person, I gotta make an effort,’ and then you don’t because your life keeps going.
“It’s important now to really take that time, and I think I’m finally starting to get that,” she added.
