Shannen Doherty, Star of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed, Dead at 53

Beverly Hills, 90210 star Shannen Doherty has died following a lengthy battle with breast cancer. She was 53 years old.

“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty,” Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane tells TVLine. “On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease. The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace.”

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The actress, most famous for her four-season run as Brenda Walsh on the original Beverly Hills, 90210 and her three-season stint as Prue Halliwell on the original Charmed — and most infamous for her exits from those Aaron Spelling series — began her career at 11 years old, appearing one after the other on Michael Landon’s Father Murphy and Little House On the Prairie. She parlayed that early success into a lead on NBC’s Our House, a 1986-88 family drama starring Wilford Brimley and Deidre Hall.

Then came what was arguably Doherty’s breakout role, that of “megabitch” Heather Duke — aka the last mean girl standing — in the big-screen black comedy Heathers. She booked 90210 two years later and, overnight, found herself the object of fan adulation and tabloid obsession.

Upon her departure from the Fox hit, the sometime Playboy covergirl starred in Kevin Smith’s Mallrats (1995) but mainly worked in TV movies until former boss Spelling rehired her for Charmed in 1997. She even directed a few episodes before her character was killed off in Season 3.

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In the 2000s, Doherty’s work ran the gamut from reality shows (Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty, Shannen Says, Dancing With the Stars) and more TV movies (Christmas Caper, Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys, Witchslayer Gretl) to a small-screen Heathers reboot and an animated series in which she voiced twins, one of whom was a ghost (Mari-Kari). Still, all roads seemed to lead back to 90210.

In 2008, Doherty reprised her role of Brenda opposite Jennie Garth as onetime bestie Kelly Taylor for The CW’s short-lived spinoff. Eleven years later, she joined more members of the original series’ cast in Fox’s meta-revival, BH90210, and guest-starred on The CW’s Riverdale to help the series lay to rest Fred Andrews, the heroic character played by her late 90210 leading man, Luke Perry.

In sharing with Good Morning America in February 2020 that her cancer was no longer in remission and, in fact, had advanced to stage 4, Doherty called her diagnosis “a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways… There are days when I say, ‘Why me?’ and then I go, ‘Well, why not me?’ Who else besides me deserves this? None of us do.”

In June 2023, Doherty shared that the cancer had spread to her brain.