Shannen Doherty Reveals She Has Stage 4 Cancer

Shannen Doherty revealed she has stage 4 cancer in an interview that aired Tuesday.

The former star of “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Charmed” discussed her cancer coming back with Amy Robach on “Good Morning America.”

“It’s going to come out in a matter of days or a week that I’m stage 4, so my cancer came back, and that’s why I’m here,” Doherty said. “I don’t think I’ve processed it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways.”

“It was so weird for me to be diagnosed and then somebody who was, you know, seemingly healthy to go first,” said Doherty. “It was really, like, shocking. And the least I could do to honor him was do that show. I still haven’t done enough, in my opinion.”

Doherty initially only shared her diagnosis with a small group of people, including costar Brian Austin Green. She said she wanted to show that people with stage four cancer can still work.

“Our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis,” Doherty said. “We still have some living to do.”

She also said she decided to reveal it to the world now because it was going to be disclosed in a court battle with her insurance company over wildfire damages to her California home.

“I’d rather people hear it from me,” Doherty said. “I don’t want it to be twisted. I don’t want it to be a court document. I want it to be real and authentic, and I want to control the narrative. I want people to know from me.”

Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 but announced she had gone into remission in 2017.

She had documented that battle publicly, through interviews and social media, but kept the news that her cancer came back quiet. She said she went back to work on “90210” even after the diagnosis, in part to honor her former co-star Luke Perry, who died in March, but to prove she could do it as well.

“One of the reasons, along with Luke, that I did ‘90210’ and didn’t really tell anybody, because I thought people can look at that – other people with stage four can work too,” she said. “You know, our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”