  The tidal destruction of a star by a massive black hole, known as a tidal
disruption event (TDE), is commonly modeled using the "frozen-in"
approximation. Under this approximation, the star maintains exact hydrostatic
balance prior to entering the tidal sphere (radius $r_{\rm t}$), after which
point its internal pressure and self-gravity become instantaneously negligible
and the debris undergoes ballistic free fall. We present a suite of
hydrodynamical simulations of TDEs with high penetration factors $\beta \equiv
r_{\rm t}/r_{\rm p} = 5-7$, where $r_{\rm p}$ is the pericenter of the stellar
center of mass, calculated using a Voronoi-based moving-mesh technique. We show
that basic assumptions of the frozen-in model, such as the neglect of
self-gravity inside $r_{\rm t}$, are violated. Indeed, roughly equal fractions
of the final energy spread accumulate exiting and entering the tidal sphere,
though the frozen-in prediction is correct at the order-of-magnitude level. We
also show that an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ fraction of the debris mass remains
transversely confined by self-gravity even for large $\beta$ which has
implications for the radio emission from the unbound debris and, potentially,
for the circularization efficiency of the bound streams.
