The world lost not only a pop culture queen, but also an advocate for cancer survival and treatments, when Shannen Doherty passed away on Saturday, July 13, 2024. The Beverly Hills, 90210 vet spent much of the final decade of her life in various stages of a fight against various cancers — she was diagnosed with Stage 4 ahead of filming the 90210 revival — and more recently documented her post-diagnosis struggles and celebrations though her podcast Let’s Be Clear, which began in December 2023. She also planned to start up a Charmed rewatch podcast ahead of her death.
Fans may be shocked to learn that Doherty remained as dedicated to working and staying busy for as long as possible, sometimes recording up to three podcast episodes a day, which is a schedule many healthy podcasters don’t often adhere to. Speaking with People ahead of Let’s Be Clear’s premiere date, the actress talked about why she went with such a prolific approach to her then-new project, saying that staying busy warded off the negative feelings. In her words:
Listen, you're seeing me on a good day. Right? But I think also the difference that I've really noticed is that when I'm working and when I'm creative, there's no room for depression at all. It fuels me.
Doherty was clearly enthused at the time about what would become her final creative journey connecting her to fans who followed her career for decades, from her earliest child star days to her “bad girl” years on Beverly Hills, 90210 (which ended with her leaving the show early) and into her less tabloid-driven adult years. A lot of stories from her celebrated career were also shared on Let’s Be Clear, with the actress welcoming guests such as past co-stars Jason Priestley, Brian Austin Green and Tori Spelling, as well as her Mallrats director Kevin Smith, her ex-husband Rick Salomon, and more.
As listeners are well aware, episodes of Let’s Be Clear were usually 35-40 minutes at their shortest, and often lasted around an hour or so. What’s more, quite a few of the interview episodes were split into multiple parts, meaning those conversations likely took from 60-90 minutes, if not more. So that truly sounds like Doherty was able to get a full day’s worth of work done by taking on two or three podcast eps a day.
She continued explaining why the heavy workload was worth it for her, saying that she dealt with bouts of depression as time went on, and was mentally struggling with being a single woman in her 50s fighting a cancer battle. But despite others’ questioning her podcast duties, she was inspired to go for broke, saying:
Working makes me so happy. Even my podcast producers were like, 'Really? You're going to do three episodes in one day? It's a lot.' And I was like, 'I could do five in a day.' I just go. . . . Once they start working, I dive in, and I have such discipline and such work ethic, but it's also invigorating. I love it. So that helps me for sure.
Beyond just keeping busy on a day to day basis, Shannen Doherty also used the podcast as a form of catharsis, tackling the heavy topics that weighed on her mind and body. In one episode back in January, she shared her hopes for her remains, saying she wanted to have her ashes mixed with her dog’s and her father’s ashes.
Just a week before her death, she released the most recent episode of Let’s Be Clear, in which it was revealed that she would be joining former co-stars Holly Marie Combs, Brian Krause and Drew Fuller for The House of Halliwell, which serves as a rebooted version of the latter trio’s previous Charmed rewatch podcast. She’d initially turned down Combs’ invitation to be a co-host 18 months prior, and explained that she wasn’t even familiar with what podcasts were at the time, and only in the process of creating Let’s Be Clear did it all click. Only one episode was released before Doherty’s death, and it’s unclear how many were recorded.
Fans can watch Doherty’s years as Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210 with a Paramount+ subscription, while Charmed is available in full to stream with a Peacock subscription.
We at CinemaBlend send our thoughts and condolences to the family and friends of Shannen Doherty in their time of mourning.
