Why did BH90210 go with fictionalized on-screen families?

TVLine

Shannen Doherty has been married for eight years, but she's single on the Beverly Hills, 90210 revival. Brian Austin Green is married to La La Anthony on the show, but in Megan Fox is his wife in real life. Even Tori Spelling had a fictional husband, played by Ivan Sergei, even though her real-life hubby Dean McDermott is famous from their reality TV experiences. “For those of us who do have spouses, we chose to use completely fictional characters for those roles, to protect our families,” says Jennie Garth. The fictional spouses allowed for creative storytelling possibilities. “That was kind of the whole point,” says Garth, “to take people’s perceptions and twist it … and take the power back, so that we’re the ones in on the joke.”