Killer Thriller: Tori Spelling Wanted to Break Free from “Donna Martin” the Virgin. This Was the Role.
misSPELLING
iHeartPodcasts
4.3 • 824 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tori Spelling was known as Donna Martin, the ultimate good girl. So when Death of a Cheerleader came along, she jumped at the chance to play someone completely different. In this episode, Tori looks back on stepping into a story rooted in a real high school murder, where jealousy, popularity, and pressure to fit in spiraled into something unthinkable. Because what starts as typical teen drama ends in a crime that still feels hard to explain.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:10.7 | Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes present. |
| 0:13.5 | Killer Thriller with your host, Elisa Donovan. |
| 0:18.7 | Hey, everyone. Elisa Donovan here, back with a new episode of Killer Thriller. |
| 0:23.8 | Now, I know that we are here to feature true crime guilty pleasure, but today we are combining all the things we obsess about at once. |
| 0:32.8 | My guest is none other than 90s teen drama queen Tori Spelling. |
| 0:39.8 | Hi, my friends. |
| 0:40.9 | Hi. |
| 0:41.6 | Oh my gosh, we're here. |
| 0:43.2 | Tori starred as Stacey Lockwood in the film, A Friend to Die for, which was the most |
| 0:49.0 | watched TV movie of 1994. |
| 0:51.5 | And depending on where in the world you were watching it or on what network, |
| 0:55.0 | the movie was also known as death of a cheerleader. The film is based on the true story of the |
| 1:00.1 | 1984 murder of Kirsten Kostas, a popular high school cheerleader in Orinda, California, |
| 1:06.6 | who was stabbed to death by her classmate, Bernadette Prottie, driven by jealousy over popularity and social status. |
| 1:14.8 | Tori, |
| 1:15.5 | welcome to killer thriller. |
| 1:17.5 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:20.6 | Love the pod. |
| 1:22.2 | Oh, thank you. |
| 1:23.7 | I mean, true crime. |
... |
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