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Shannen Doherty Opens Up About Preparing for Death in Emotional Podcast Episode: ‘My Priority Is My Mom’
Shannen Doherty is preparing for her death by downsizing and letting go of many of her belongings to make things easier for her mom after she’s gone.
“My priority at the moment is my mom. I know it’s going to be hard on her if I pass away before her,” Shannen, 52, said in the Monday, April 1, episode of her podcast, “Let’s Be Clear.”
The Beverly Hills 90201 alum continued, “Because it’s going to be so hard on her, I want other things to be a lot easier. I don’t want her to have a bunch of stuff to deal with. I don’t want her to have four storage units filled with furniture.”
Shannen said that even though she still had “a lot of hopes and dreams” and that she’s a “fighter,” she still felt the need to make things “clean” for those she left behind. The Charmed star added that she had a good friend helping her with all of the packing.
The decision to let go of some of her possessions was still a heartbreaking one. Shannen said that she had once dreamed of running a rescue for abandoned horses in Tennessee, and she owned property there. However, as a way to make life easier on her mom, it was one of the properties she decided to sell, and that made the Heathers star question if she was “giving up on life.”
“My mom was there and she was like, ‘Don’t get rid of this place. It’s fine. You don’t have to, and you keep going.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, absolutely I can.’” Shannen explained. “But the funny thing is, a week and a half later when I went back to throw it all in a U-Haul and have my friend Zack drive it back to California, I started noticing all the things wrong with the place, and how much money it would cost me and how it was kind of a stupid idea to begin with.”
Shannen was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2015, and after two years of treatment, it went into remission in 2017. However, the cancer returned as stage IV breast cancer in 2018. In June 2023, Shannen announced that the cancer had metastasized to her brain in January of that year. By November 2023, it had spread to her bones.
On January 29, Shannen gave fans an encouraging update about a new “cancer infusion” treatment she was receiving that was garnering positive results.
“That it’s actually breaking down that blood-brain barrier is actually a miracle of that drug, a miracle of maybe God intervening and saying, ‘I’m gonna give her a break,’” she told her radiation oncologist Dr. Amin Mirhadi about the unnamed drug. “Sometimes you’re looking for miracles in all the wrong places, and they’re right in front of your face.”
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