After feeling like she was never good enough due to constant rejection as an actress, Taylor Dooley met Justin Cassotta who, seemingly at first, fell head over heels for her exactly as she was. Despite a 11-year age gap between the two (Dooley was 19, Cassotta 30), they tied the knot in 2016 and welcomed two children. However, the relationship was mentally and emotionally abusive for Dooley, who shared on “Vulnerable” that she was often gaslighted by Cassotta.
Whenever Dooley tried to tell Cassotta that he couldn’t yell at her, he made her question her mental sanity. “I’d go, ‘Well, I’m not crazy, this actually happened.’ He’d go, ‘No, I didn’t say that. You took it that way because you have issues,’ and I’d go, ‘Oh, okay,'” Dooley said, adding that all of this felt normal because of what she went through in the business as a kid.
Things began to change after Dooley became a mother, as she worried how Cassotta would be around the kids. Dooley suggested they attend therapy, but her husband wasn’t having it. “He said, ‘You’re crazy and everything you’re saying is a lie and I’m leaving.'” It was a difficult time for Dooley, who still thought that they could make it work. Yet after some time, she realized how abusive her relationship truly was, and that a divorce in 2021 was for the best.
