Jennie Garth recalled her late friend Shannen Doherty taking an interest in her love life after her first divorce.
“I was remembering, like, there [were] times after we stopped filming [Beverly Hills, 90210] and I was newly divorced — I think — and she took a special interest [in] whoever I was dating,” Garth, 52, said of Doherty, who died at age 53 on July 13, during the Tuesday, July 23, episode of her and Tori Spelling’s “90210MG” podcast. “She wanted to meet them, basically vet them, I guess.”
Garth was married to musician Daniel B. Clark from 1994 to 1996, and Beverly Hills, 90210 aired from 1990 to 2000. She noted on Tuesday that although Doherty didn’t know her second husband, Peter Facinelli, “that well” when she married him in 2001, she did size up some of her other romantic partners from that era.
“We went to dinner with two of my quote-unquote boyfriends during that weird time, and I just remember her just really truly checking them out from across the table and assessing them,” Garth recalled. “And then I would be like, ‘What do you think?’ And she would tell me.”
Garth and Facinelli, 50, split in 2012 after 11 years of marriage and finalized their divorce the following year. The exes share three daughters: Luca, 27, Lola, 21, and Fiona, 17. Garth went on to marry Dave Abrams in 2015 while Facinelli has been engaged to Lily Anne Harrison since 2020. Facinelli and Harrison, 35, welcomed their son, Jack, in September 2022.
Before Doherty began weighing in on Garth’s romantic life, the former costars had their ups and downs. Their Beverly Hills, 90210 characters, Brenda Walsh (Doherty) and Kelly Taylor (Garth), were frenemies, and the drama sometimes continued offscreen. However, Garth said during the Thursday, July 18, episode of her “I Choose Me” podcast that she wants fans of the teen drama to look beyond her and Doherty’s at-times “complicated” dynamic.
“There’s been this crazy division in some of the fans that they were either Team Kelly or they were Team Brenda, and I don’t think that either Shannen or I ever wanted that,” Garth shared. “[Her death] is a time when we can come together and process this all with each other. That is my hope.”
The What I Like About You alum added that she and Doherty “loved each other” even though their relationship was “convoluted at times by outside forces that just sort of crept in for us both.”
Although Doherty had long been outspoken about her stage 4 cancer, Garth and Spelling, 51, who also starred on Beverly Hills, 90210, spoke on Tuesday about their shared disbelief over her death.
“She has shown her entire life and career … that she can get past anything,” Spelling said. “So, although we know cancer is so evil and takes everyone that we love, I guess she made you believe that she was the one that would make it.”
Garth added that she “never thought” Doherty would die from cancer.
“Just knowing what we know about her — what a tough, like, fighter, [and] strong [person she is] — it just seemed like it would never get her,” she said. “And then when it did, it was just shocking.”
