About four years ago, Shannen Doherty revealed that she had breast cancer by shaving her head. In 2017, she shared the news that she was in remission. Today, she told Amy Robach on Good Morning America that it came back, and it is stage four. The actress says she found out it was back about a year ago and is still processing the diagnosis because “it’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways.”
She knew her fate when her good friend, Luke Perry, died of a stroke in March. She said this about his untimely death, “It’s so weird for me to be diagnosed and then somebody who was, you know, seemingly healthy to go first. It was really, like, shocking. And the least I could do to honor him was to do that show. I still haven’t done, in my opinion. So it’s a hard one.”
The show she is talking about is the spinoff BH 90210, and she did it because she wanted to honor Perry. The only person she told on the set was Brian Austin Green, and he was there for her when they were working long days. She wants other people to know that you can still work with stage 4 cancer.
Why did she come out now? She is in a legal battle with State Farm insurance over the settlement they gave to her for her house that was heavily damaged during the Malibu fires in 2018. They will be going court in the next few days, and she did not want the world to find out about her cancer returning from the documents.
She is fighting for the little guys who have been taking advantage of by insurance companies. Why go through all of that when she is going through all of this? Doherty explains, “I think the thing I want to do the most right now is I want to make an impact.” Then she added, “I want to be remembered for something bigger than just me.”
That she will be remembered for. She has always been larger than life since she starred in the movies Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Heathers in the ’80s, and later on when she did Beverly Hills, 90210, Charmed and whatever else she was in. Her acting and her openness about cancer are just two of the many things we will remember about her. We will add making an impact on the ever-growing list.
I will be praying for her and everyone else that is fighting that horrible disease on World Cancer Day. Why can’t they just come up with a cure already?
