After Nearly 20 Years On One Of TV’s Biggest Shows, Holly Hallstrom Was Suddenly Pushed Out Under A Controversial Reason — But The Stand She Took Behind Closed Doors, And Why She Stayed Silent For So Long, Is Now Revealing A Story Far More Complicated Than Anyone Realized

Holly Hallstrom feels liberated after finally being able to tell her story.

Speaking with PEOPLE about her participation in E!’s Dirty Rotten Scandals docuseries, which includes a two-part episode telling the story of The Price Is Right behind the scenes, Hallstrom opens up about the events that led to her firing from the show after nearly two decades as one of “Barker’s Beauties.”

Hallstrom explained that her own issues on set came in the aftermath of Dian Parkinson’s affair with Bob Barker and the fallout from it ending. Parkinson went on to sue Barker for sexual harassment, leading to employees being asked to testify under oath about the environment behind the scenes at the game show.

“Every time you went to the studio, you had to sit with lawyers who all they wanted to hear was all the bad stuff about Dian and how Bob could not have possibly sexually harassed Dian,” she shared in the documentary.

“I wanted nothing to do with it,” Hallstrom continued. “I was the only one that was asked to give a deposition and did not. I didn’t want to commit felony perjury, which is exactly what it would have been if I gave a testimony.”

“I refused to testify in court, to commit felony perjury for him. That was the final straw, but it’s against the law to fire an employee for failing to testify on your behalf in a court of law. So they could not fire me for that,” she explained.

“So instead, Barker said I was overweight, and that’s why I was off the show. I was not surprised that he used that as the excuse, the reason, the justification for firing me, but when I was asked why I was fired, I told them, ‘I was told it was because my weight was a problem.’ “

Hallstrom noted that after Parkinson’s lawsuit, Barker began to experience public fallout for the first time in his career and it caused him to act irrationally.

“Barker experienced a bombardment of hate mail for the first time ever, and he went out and told everyone that I was lying, that weight was never mentioned. It became absolute insanity. How can you say I was not fired because of my weight when I was cut out of 50% of the show, and when I was on camera, I was hidden away behind automobiles and large appliances because of my weight problem, according to the director?”

In the midst of a growing feud between Hallstrom and Barker, Parkinson dropped her lawsuit. Hallstrom noted, “The last day anyone on that set saw Dian was the last day she shot The Price Is Right. After that, I have never talked to Dian again.”

While that concluded one standoff for Barker, he was still locked in on Hallstrom. He informed her that she would be taking an “early retirement,” again citing the issue of her weight. It’s when she first felt, “I hate that man.”

“When I didn’t agree, that’s when the whole thing blew up. And then lawyers called me and started negotiating the terms of retirement and I said, ‘But I don’t want to retire. There’s no need for me to retire.’ But there really was no choice. Barker wanted me gone. I was being fired and I wouldn’t be coming back, after nearly 20 years on the show. I was devastated,” Hallstrom shared in the documentary.

She told PEOPLE, “Basically, he said I was a fat liar and problematic and no one liked working with me, and that was just a bald-faced lie. And that’s when I said, ‘I’m not taking this. I’m not going quietly.’ And because I had not, like Dian, taken the settlement and signed the non-disclosure agreement, I could do that. I could speak out.”

Hallstrom took her story to Hard Copy, leading Barker to file a defamation lawsuit against her that lasted years and wiped her out financially.

“I thought I was prepared and ready because I’d been a social activist my whole life, because I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late ’60s. Social activism was just the curriculum. And so I thought I was prepared, but I was so naive,” Hallstrom tells PEOPLE.

In 2000, Barker dropped his suit just days before the matter was set to go to trial. She, in turn, sued Barker for malicious prosecution, which resulted in a settlement.

“He filed a bogus lawsuit against me and dragged me through court for 10 years until I had nothing left. And that’s why I didn’t speak out for so many years, because he was alive. I didn’t speak out until he was dead because even though he lost, he would’ve done it again in a heartbeat.”

After Barker’s death in 2023, Hallstrom thought again about sharing her story. When presented with an opportunity to do so, she forged ahead.

“To be able to say, ‘This is what is happening in our industry and it’s been this way since the beginning,’ and to speak out and have an audience to hear it, it was so liberating. It was like the weight of the world was off my shoulders that I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying for 30 years,” she said.

“They say the truth will set you free. Man, it set me free. Absolutely, 100%.”