According to Shannen Doherty, her father, John Thomas Doherty, had health problems that played a role in her departure from “Beverly Hills, 90201” in 1994. “I was having a lot of personal issues that I had to come to terms with, like my dad being as sick as he was, and that was definitely hurting me more than I knew, emotionally,” she told Digital Spy in 2014. She also revealed on “Good Morning America” that she decided to compete on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2010 after her dad suffered a debilitating stroke. Sadly, he didn’t get to watch his daughter do much dancing, as Shannen was eliminated in Week 1. A few months later, Shannen was mourning her father. “I love him with every inch of my being and cannot imagine life without him,” she said in a statement to People.
Doherty’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” co-star Luke Perry also suffered a stroke before he died in 2019. Doherty told People that her former on-screen love interest had contacted her after her breast cancer diagnosis and that they had been talking about working on a new project together. “I will miss him everyday. Every minute. Every second,” she said.
Doherty found herself grappling with grief yet again in 2020 when one of her dearest friends, stylist Deborah Waknin-Harwin, died from cancer. “I will so miss you,” she wrote on Instagram. “I already do. I already feel it, this part of my heart missing.”
