Shannen Doherty Reveals Cancer Has Spread to Her Brain: ‘My Fear Is Obvious’

Shannen Doherty, the Beverly Hills, 90210 star, revealed on June 6 that her breast cancer has spread to her brain. Doherty shared the news on her personal Instagram account.

On June 5, Doherty shared a video of her in the hospital with a short caption, January 9, 2023. The actress then posted another video on June 6, in which she announced the spread of her cancer and a provided a description of the earlier video.

On January 5th, my CT scan showed Mets in my brain. Yesterdays video was showing the process of getting fitted for the mask which you wear during radiation to your brain.

Doherty continued in caption, January 12, the first round of radiation took place. My fear is obvious. I am extremely claustrophobic and there was a lot going on in my life. I am fortunate as I have great doctors like Dr. Amin Mirahdi and the amazing techs at Cedar Sinai. But that fear. The turmoil.. the timing of it all. This is what cancer can look like.

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, then in 2017 she went into remission. However, Doherty learned in the winter of 2019 that the cancer had returned, spread and became metastatic stage 4 cancer.

In a 2021 interview with Variety, the SAG-AFTRA member revealed, in addition to facing treatments she was also worried about the loss of her health insurance.

It is something that I worry about, of course, like: Oh, my God, Ive got to make sure I earn a certain amount of money every single year to get insurance. Whereas if you just looked at my 40 years of paying dues, and the pension and all of that the producers pay in on behalf of me, you would think that that would cover my insurance for the rest of my life. And it should.

With a career spanning over 40 years, Doherty has over 80 acting credits, including Charmed, Heathers, 21 Jump Street, Little House on the Prairie and Our House.