Shannen Doherty has announced that the cancer she has been fighting since 2015 has spread to her brain. The Beverly Hills 90210 actor, who is 52 years old, shared the health update on Tuesday via a video posted to social media.
“On January 5th, my ct scan showed Mets in my brain,” Doherty writes in the caption of the video, which depicts Doherty crying while undergoing radiation treatment. “...January 12 the first round of radiation took place. My fear is obvious.” The video was shared in swift succession with another video Doherty posted of her being fitted for a radiation mask post-CT scan. According to Doherty, the fact that she is “extremely claustrophobic” only adds to the discomfort of the radiation process.
Although Doherty graciously thanks her medical team at Cedars-Sinai for their work, she’s also straightforward about the pain and uncertainty she’s experienced as a long-term cancer patient.
“That fear.... The turmoil..... the timing of it all.... This is what cancer can look like,” she continues. In the comments, industry peers like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Selma Blair, and Mira Sorvino all commended Doherty on her strength in the face of adversity.
Since she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, Doherty’s cancer journey has been a series of ups and downs. In 2016, the cancer spread to Doherty’s lymph nodes, and the actor underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy and radiation in order to finally enter a remission period in 2017. But in 2020, she announced on Good Morning America that her cancer had returned as a stage 4 ailment (meaning it had spread beyond its original location).
“It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways,” Doherty said of her cancer at the time.