The “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed” actress, 52, shared on Instagram that her cancer has spread to her brain. An emotional video posted Tuesday shows a crying Doherty wearing a mask and undergoing a CT scan at Cedars-Sinai in January.
“My fear is obvious. I am extremely claustrophobic and there was a lot going on in my life,” she captioned the video.
On Monday, Doherty shared a video from Jan. 9 of doctors molding a flexible MRI mask to her face.
The actor was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, as revealed in a lawsuit that she and ex-husband Kurt Iswarienko filed against her former accountants and business managers. The following year she told “Entertainment Tonight” that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and she had started chemotherapy and radiation treatment to keep the cancer at bay.
Doherty was in remission in 2017, but then she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, she revealed in February 2020.
“I don’t think I’ve processed it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways,” she said on “Good Morning America.”
According to a journal published in the National Library of Medicine, “breast cancer brain metastasis (BCBM) is one of the most common forms of breast cancer metastasis.”
Doherty, who underwent a mastectomy, said on Instagram that she was grateful for the medical team at Cedars-Sinai, but told her Instagram followers about “that fear” of her cancer battle.
“The turmoil….. the timing of it all…. ,” she wrote. “This is what cancer can look like.”
The ‘90s superstar’s health update comes months after she and Iswarienko filed for divorce in April after 11 years of marriage.
“Divorce is the last thing Shannen wanted,” a representative for Doherty said in a statement shared with the Associated Press. “Unfortunately, she felt she was left with no other option.”