Dean McDermott's Ex Mary Jo Eustace On Child Support Lawsuit: 'I Did What I Had To Do'
Nov. 23 2015, Updated 10:03 p.m. ET
Dean McDermott's ex-wife Mary Jo Eustace didn't want to use legal measures to force her former husband to pay thousands in alimony and child support for their son— but the celebrity chef says she had no choice.
"Obviously you don't want to do that, but if you have no other choice, you do. So I did," the 52-year-old mother of two told RadarOnline.com in an exclusive video interview.
As RadarOnline.com exclusively reported, McDermott, who left Eustace for now-wife Tori Spelling, 42, in an infamous 2005 affair, owes a whopping $45,000 in back payments, and has yet to cough up the cash.
Fortunately, the Scared Wheatless cookbook author doesn't feel so alone in her struggles.
"So many women have this issue, getting child support or alimony. Tons of women," she added. "It's really scary, because the system is really hard. For you to go after it, you have to spend money. Your documents become public knowledge. I became an advocate."
Eustace isn't exactly sure why her ex isn't paying the bills, but she has a hunch the family's very public financial problems may be to blame.
McDermott, 49, quit his gig as the host of Chopped Canada in March 2015, while wife Spelling has claimed she is unable to work after suffering a horrific burn at a local Benihana restaurant last spring.
"It's been documented that they've had financial problems. It's hard to separate the reality from the truth, but at the end of the day, it's a legal obligation and I wanted to make sure that obligation was fulfilled," she explained.
Eustace calls herself a "pit bull mom" who will do anything for her 17-year-old son with McDermott, Jack, and her daughter Lola, 10.
That includes changing the family's diet to gluten-free when Lola was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease alopecia, which caused her to lose patches of hair.
"I think when your child is sick or ill, you go insane. I had a total nervous breakdown. I couldn't believe this was happening to her," she recalled in the video interview, adding that after two years of a gluten-free diet, "her hair grew back!"
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In Scared Wheatless, Eustace presents 96 easy, delicious gluten-free meals, including black bean and quinoa burgers and linguine with lemon tuna cream.
Watch RadarOnline.com's exclusive video interview above, and pick up a copy of Scared Wheatless on Amazon.
