Shannen Doherty says she’s in the midst of a “really hard” and “emotional” process.
On Monday’s episode of Doherty’s “Let’s Be Clear” podcast, the “Beverly Hills: 90210” alum — who has stage 4 cancer — got choked up while explaining why she’s currently getting rid of many of her possessions.
“Cancer, for me, has really made me take stock of my life and shift my priorities, and my priority at the moment is my mom,” Doherty said of her mother.
“I know it’s going to be hard on her if I pass away before her, but — ugh, I’m so sorry, this is going to be a hard one for me,” Doherty said, her voice audibly trembling. “But … because it’s going to be so hard on her, I want other things to be a lot easier. I don’t want her to have a bunch of stuff to deal with. I don’t want her to have four storage units filled with furniture.”
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Doherty said that she recently cried while packing up items to sell and donate in one of properties in Tennessee. The idea of getting rid of her stuff made her feel like she was “giving up on [her] dream,” she said, of making the property into sanctuary for abandoned and abused horses, which she’d planned to run with her mother.
“Did [this] mean I was giving up on life? Did it mean I was throwing in the towel?” Doherty asked aloud, before saying she feels it’s the “right thing to do.”
“You know that it’s going to give you a sense of peace and a sense of calm …because you’re helping the people that you leave behind [to have] a cleaner, easier transition.”
Doherty says she plans to sell her things — which includes a ton of antiques she’s collected throughout the years, thanks to what she calls her “furniture addiction” — and hopes to use the money to travel with her mom. But she said she also wants to make sure her loved ones are taken care of in the event of her death.
“So then I get to build different memories, and I get to build memories with the people I love,” Doherty said.
She added the process has also given her a new perspective on her possessions — it’s “just stuff” that doesn’t “bring me any great joy.”
“But what does bring me a lot of joy is taking my mom to the places she’s always wanted to go to,” Doherty said. “And building those memories with her.”
The “Charmed” alum has been very candid about the difficulties she’s faced since she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 — including the revelation in June 2023 that her cancer had dangerously spread to her brain. But in January, she offered her podcast listeners a glimmer of hope by sharing that a new treatment she’s undergoing could possibly grant her a “miracle.”
“I’m on a new cancer infusion, and after four treatments, we didn’t really see a difference, and everybody wanted me to switch [to a different one], and I just kind of was like, ‘We’re gonna keep going with this and see,’” she said.
But after the sixth or seventh treatment, Doherty said she saw some progress. “Do I call that a miracle? Yeah.”