Candy Spelling’s home she owned with husband Aaron ‘for 50 years’ away from LA Fire, friend says (Exclusive)

Candy Spelling has lost her home in the still raging wildfires in Los Angeles, a friend confirms to PEOPLE

On Thursday, January 9, Nikki Haskell, a friend of the 79-year-old Broadway producer – who is the mother of Beverly Hills, 90210 star Tori Spelling and her brother Randy, as well as the widow of their late TV producer father Aaron Spelling — confirmed to PEOPLE that their Malibu, Calif. home has burned down in the Palisades fire.

“This is the house she owned with Aaron for 50 years,” Haskell tells PEOPLE.

She adds that “Candy is safe,” having lived in her Beverly Hills residence at the time of the fire while construction was underway on the Malibu property, but says, “it feels like an apocalyptic crisis.” TMZ was the first to report the news.

The The Wall Street Journal reported back in 2019 that the couple — who were married from 1968 until Aaron’s death in 2006 — bought their Malibu home in 1972 and later added the house next door to the property in the ’90s. The 8,000-square-foot beachfront house contained seven bedrooms, the outlet added.

The Malibu estate is different from the well-known Spelling mansion, the custom-built home located in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills neighborhood (about 30 miles east of the Malibu coast) where the family of four once lived in the 1990s and threw lavish parties .

New York Times Best-selling author Candy sold the 123-room French chateau-style property in 2011. She had customized the 56,500-square-foot property after her husband’s death with unique flourishes such as gift-wrapping rooms, flower-cutting and a doll collection dedicated to her.

“I spent four years, 24-7 planning this house,” she told PEOPLE at the time. “Now I need something smaller – just for me. I’ll have to give up some things, but it’s time for a change.”

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The destructive Palisades Fire first began in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades on January 7 and has since burned over 17,000 acres with 0% containment, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Another large fire, called the Eaton fire, started in the cities of Pasadena and Altadena in eastern LA County and has already reached over 20,000 acres. Four additional fires also continue to burn in the region.

As of Thursday, January 9, over 100,000 residents are under evacuation orders. On Wednesday, city officials reported five deaths, although a concrete death toll has yet to be determined, they noted the following day.

Residents, including many celebrities, from areas such as Malibu, Santa Monica, Altadena and more, were forced to evacuate.

PEOPLE reported that Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, Anna Faris, Cobie Smulders and Taran Killam, John Goodman, Jennifer Gray and others all lost their homes. Billy Crystal, Ricki Lake, Cameron Mathison, Miles Teller and Paris Hilton are among the stars who have confirmed their homes are gone.

Hilton spoke candidly about losing her own Malibu home in an Instagram post, writing about the fond memories she had there.

“Sitting with my family, watching the news and watching our home in Malibu burn to the ground on live TV is something no one should ever have to experience,” she wrote in part. “This home was where we built so many precious memories … It’s where Phoenix took its first steps and where we dreamed of building a lifetime of memories with London … Although the loss is overwhelming, I hold on thankful that my family is safe, my heart and prayers go out to every family affected by these fires.”

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the LA fires.