Shannen Doherty's stage 4 breast cancer returns after 3 years in remission: 'It's a bitter pill to swallow'
After three years of being in remission, actress Shannen Doherty has revealed that her cancer has returned.
In an interview with ABC News that aired Tuesday morning on 'Good Morning America,' the 'Charmed' actress, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and went into remission in 2017, divulged the heartbreaking development.
“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. I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, well, ‘Why not me? Who else? Who else besides me deserves this?’ None of us do.”
As she battled her way out of the disease the first time around, she always kept her fans updated on every development of her condition. However, that was not the case this time around as she initially tried to keep it private. It was mainly because she was still dealing with the loss of her friend and costar Luke Perry, who passed away in March 2019. “It’s 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.”
Apart from a way to honor Perry by participating in the TV reboot of 'Beverly Hills, 90210', which aired last year on Fox, it also gave her the opportunity to throw herself into work in spite of her failing health.
“One of the reasons, along with Luke, that I did 90210 and didn’t really tell anybody [was] because I thought, people can look at that [as] people with stage 4 can work too,” she explained in the interview. "Our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”