‘Not done with living’: Shannen Doherty on her cancer spread – the Beverly Hills, 90210 and Heathers star revealed that the disease has spread to her bones as she launches a memoir-style podcast
- From Beverly Hills, 90210 to Charmed and Heathers, Shannen Doherty was a permanent fixture on 90s teen TV shows, but in recent years has been fighting breast and now bone cancer
- The actress is launching a podcast in December called Let’s Be Clear With Shannen Doherty, which she says will feature ‘brutally honest conversations with some very special and influential people’
Shannen Doherty is sharing more bad news about her eight-year cancer battle: the disease has now spread to her bones. Despite the bleak development, the Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed star said she still has a lot more living to do.
“I don’t want to die,” the People cover star said in this week’s issue, telling the magazine that she’s hoping to inspire others by focusing on her future.
The Heathers star said she thinks of the disease as “the Pac-Man video game where they start to go into your bones”, but noted that she’s doing much better on a new treatment regimen. She also had a growth removed from her brain earlier this year. Now, she’s hoping to get into clinical trials to develop new treatments.
“People just assume that it means you can’t walk, you can’t eat, you can’t work. They put you out to pasture at a very early age –‘You’re done, you’re retired,’ and we’re not,” she said of being a cancer patient. “We’re vibrant, and we have such a different outlook on life. We are people who want to work and embrace life and keep moving forward.”
Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, a public disclosure made in a lawsuit against her former manager. She had a mastectomy, underwent chemotherapy and radiation and declared herself in remission in 2017. By February 2020, however, Doherty said that the disease had returned and metastasised, spreading beyond her breasts and lymph nodes into her spine.
Later that year, she said that she expected to be in treatment for the rest of her life. In June, she shared that the cancer had spread to her brain, requiring surgery and more radiation treatment.
