Tragic Details About Shannen Doherty's Life

Before Shannen Doherty tragically died at age 53, the "Beverly Hills, 90210" star spent years keeping fans updated on her heartbreaking health issues. When Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, she also learned that it could have been caught earlier and possibly prevented from spreading if her insurance hadn't lapsed. According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Doherty sued her business management firm for missing a payment on her insurance premium. Doherty said that she temporarily quit making regular doctor's visits because of this, and she learned that she had cancer when she resumed them.

In 2016, Doherty told Entertainment Tonight her doctors had discovered that her cancer had likely spread beyond her lymph nodes, which meant she would have to undergo chemotherapy and radiation therapy. She also spoke to the outlet about shopping for a bra after having a mastectomy. "It was traumatic and horrible ... I broke down crying in the dressing room and ran out," she recalled.

Doherty shared the sad news that she had stage 4 cancer in 2020, and three years later, she had to have a tumor removed when the cancer spread to her brain. After it metastasized to her bones, she told People in a November 2023 interview, "I don't want to die ... I'm not done with living. I'm not done with loving." Doherty's long struggle with cancer wasn't really just one tragedy but a series of them, and it wasn't the only adversity she faced in her life.

Shannen Doherty's relationship history was messy and traumatic at times. In a 1993 Vanity Fair interview, she accused her ex Dean Factor of being physically abusive, alleging that he once punched her while she was driving. She also described her unlucky love life by saying, "It seems to be the norm for me to hook up with really bad men." But when Doherty met photographer Kurt Iswarienko, she believed that she'd finally found true love. "He's a good one — and it's about time," she told E! News in 2012.

The couple dated for around three years before getting married in 2011, and Doherty's assessment of Iswarienko was seemingly proven accurate when their marriage passed the decade mark. In 2016, Doherty told ET that her cancer diagnosis had strengthened her bond with her husband, but she and Iswarienko had to have some difficult conversations about her illness. "I looked at him and I said, 'You better enjoy every single second that you have with me ... 'cause I'm going to be dead in five years,'" she recalled.

In 2023, Doherty filed for divorce. According to the "Heathers" star, she had learned that Iswarienko had been cheating on her. Even worse, she found out right before she underwent brain surgery. On her "Let's Be Clear" podcast, Doherty said of the betrayal, "I just felt so incredibly unloved by someone I was with for 14 years, by someone I loved with all my heart."

Shannen Doherty's dream of having children was dealt a devastating blow when she was diagnosed with cancer. While she was still healthy and happily married in 2012, she told E! News that she and Kurt Iswarienko planned on becoming parents someday. "When that happens? We don't really know," she said. That same year, she told PR.com that she was open to adopting a child. "There are plenty of children in this world and in this country that need a loving home and stable parents," she said.

Unfortunately, Doherty's cancer diagnosis threw her family planning into turmoil. Her treatments caused her to experience medically induced menopause, so she was unable to conceive. However, adoption was still on the table for the actor, as was egg donation. "But there's fear there. Am I going to last five years? Ten years?" she told Health magazine in 2019. Her dread of having a child who would have to suffer through losing their mother at a young age kept Doherty from taking any concrete steps toward starting a family. However, in a December 2023 ET interview, she shared that it was still something she desired, even after her marriage fell apart. Her plan at the time was to wait and see how well her body responded to the cancer treatment she was undergoing at the time. "If I feel like I can give a long enough time to a child, then I'll definitely do it," she said.

After Shannen Doherty learned that her cancer was terminal, she chronicled the heart-wrenching process of preparing for her death. On "Let's Be Clear," she recalled how difficult it was for her to start clearing out a property she owned in Tennessee because she had hoped to someday turn it into a sanctuary for rescue horses. "It was really hard and it was really emotional because to a certain extent I felt like I was giving up on this dream," she said.

Another plan she had to abandon was turning the property into a cozy compound where she and her mom, Rosa Doherty, would be neighbors. Rosa's future was also something that weighed heavily on Shannen's mind when she started preparing for the worst. In an effort to make her death just a modicum easier on her mother, Shannen started sorting through her possessions and deciding what she wanted to sell and give away. She explained that she was worried about all this work falling on a grieving Rosa, saying, "I don't want her to have four storage units filled with furniture because, yeah, I have a furniture obsession."

Deciding who to invite to her funeral was something else Shannen had to ponder while making the most of what time she had left. "I can't give you a list of who I don't want, because that's way too long," she joked on her podcast.

Shannen Doherty was among the lucky Malibu residents who didn't lose their homes when the Woolsey wildfire tore through her neighborhood in 2018, but her property did sustain extensive damage. According to a 2020 lawsuit filed by the actor, her insurance provider, State Farm, was not acting like a good neighbor when it failed to fork over the total amount needed for her home repairs. 

Doherty's battle with the insurance company took an ugly turn when State Farm accused her of using her terminal illness to paint herself as a sympathetic figure in hopes that she would get the monetary reward she wanted. An expert hired by the company also suggested that Doherty had continued smoking cigarettes after her breast cancer diagnosis. "It is outrageous that State Farm responded by attempting to smear me by disclosing speculation from its expert about my tobacco abuse," she said in a declaration, per Fox News.

Doherty won her case against the insurance company in 2021 and was awarded $6.3 million, but she faced another stressful legal battle when she couldn't obtain much-needed spousal support from Kurt Iswarienko. According to an E! News report published a month before Doherty died, she believed that Iswarienko was intentionally trying to hinder the divorce process. "It is simply not right that Kurt be permitted to prolong our divorce in hopes that I die before he is required to pay me," she wrote in a court document.

According to Shannen Doherty, her father, John Thomas Doherty, had health problems that played a role in her departure from "Beverly Hills, 90201" in 1994. "I was having a lot of personal issues that I had to come to terms with, like my dad being as sick as he was, and that was definitely hurting me more than I knew, emotionally," she told Digital Spy in 2014. She also revealed on "Good Morning America" that she decided to compete on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2010 after her dad suffered a debilitating stroke. Sadly, he didn't get to watch his daughter do much dancing, as Shannen was eliminated in Week 1. A few months later, Shannen was mourning her father. "I love him with every inch of my being and cannot imagine life without him," she said in a statement to People.

Doherty's "Beverly Hills, 90210" co-star Luke Perry also suffered a stroke before he died in 2019. Doherty told People that her former on-screen love interest had contacted her after her breast cancer diagnosis and that they had been talking about working on a new project together. "I will miss him everyday. Every minute. Every second," she said.

Doherty found herself grappling with grief yet again in 2020 when one of her dearest friends, stylist Deborah Waknin-Harwin, died from cancer. "I will so miss you," she wrote on Instagram. "I already do. I already feel it, this part of my heart missing."