Shannen Doherty opened up about the events that led to her being fired from Beverly Hills, 90210.
“I definitely went through a lot of growing pains on that show,” Doherty, 52, said on the Monday, January 22, episode of her “Let’s Be Clear With Shannen Doherty” podcast, in a conversation with costar Jason Priestley. “There [were] beautiful moments for me and really hard moments for me.”
Doherty starred in the first four seasons of the hit Fox series from 1990 to 1994 before her abrupt exit. At the start of season 5, fans learned that Brenda had decided to pursue acting school in England and that Doherty was written off the show. Brenda was the twin sister of Priestley, who played Brandon Walsh.
Doherty explained that she was in a “really horrible marriage” at the time, and there were “things that were transpiring in that marriage that made it really hard for [her] to consistently be on time for work.” (Doherty wed Ashley Hamilton in October 1993 and filed for divorce in April 1994.)
She acknowledged that it “became a very big problem” for her costars because they would have to wait for her and would end up working longer hours.
“It wasn’t anybody’s responsibility but mine, but I certainly wish that I had been sort of sat down and sort of looked at and said, ‘Listen, the end result is going to be this, you are going to get fired because none of us are willing to put up with it anymore,’” she said of the show’s producers. “‘And I understand that you have an issue in your personal life, but that also can’t bleed into work, you also have to get your s–t together.’”
Doherty admitted that she “probably wasn’t” transparent at the time with the struggles she was facing, adding that she doesn’t think anybody knew her dad was “super sick” or that her husband was a “massive drug addict,” who she alleged would become “incredibly violent at times.”
“It was all-consuming for me,” she confessed. “I didn’t even want to leave the house because I was scared that he would go and get drugs.”
Doherty noted that she knew that her issues were “tough” for Priestley, 54, who admitted that it was “incredibly difficult” for him to have conversations with producers Aaron Spelling and Paul Wagner about her exit from the show.
“I wish that I would’ve known more about what was happening in your personal life at the time because I could have hopefully managed it with more compassion and more caring, but we only knew what we knew,” he said. “The hardest thing for me was the show was about Brandon and Brenda, it’s about the Walsh family and all of a sudden we were going to lose one of the members of the Walsh family.”
Priestley continued that there were “so many unknowns,” as Doherty’s departure raised a number of questions, including, “How is that going to impact the show?” and “How would we find a path to move forward with the show?”
“I wish all of us had more knowledge about what was happening in your life so we could have dealt with this situation in a more compassionate way,” he said, while Doherty added that she “should’ve been transparent” with him.
“I should’ve had my personal life more together, I should have left a relationship earlier, I shouldn’t have been going out.” she admitted. “I got definitely affected by the attention, and then all of a sudden I could go into a night club and it didn’t matter how old I was. I found it all very seductive and alluring. And I fell into that trap, then you add the personal issues.”
She concluded, “I take responsibility, I don’t blame anyone. That’s my issue.”
After her firing, reports surfaced that Doherty had tension with her fellow 90210 costars.
Tori Spelling, who played Donna Martin, once claimed there was a physical fight that involved Doherty and Jennie Garth, who portrayed Kelly Taylor on the teen drama. Spelling, 50, admitted that she phoned her dad about the incident.
“I felt like I was a part of something, a movement, that cost someone their livelihood,” Spelling said during her 2015 Lifetime special, Tori Spelling: Celebrity Lie Detector. “Was she a horrible person? No. She was one of the best friends I ever had.”
Despite any alleged on-set feuds at the time, the cast seemingly put their differences behind them. In 2019, Fox announced that Doherty had reprised her role as Brenda in the network’s reboot of the series, titled BH90210, where the actors portrayed heightened versions of themselves. While all of the OG cast signed on with the exception of Luke Perry, who died after suffering a stroke in 2019, the show was ultimately canceled after its first season.
