Jennie Garth has been left “very fearful” by the deaths of her Beverly Hills, 90210 castmates Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty.
“Especially just with Luke dying and now Shannen,” Garth, 52, told Tori Spelling on an episode of their 90210MG podcast this week. “I just feel like, I don’t know, it could be any of us (that) could go at any moment. That kind of feeling … that’s scary.”
Perry’s 90210 co-stars were stunned by his sudden passing at age 52 in March 2019 following a stroke.
Spelling admitted she’s “always been a fearful person,” but said that Doherty’s death earlier this month left her with a deep sense of sadness.
“I didn’t feel fear at all when she passed. I just felt sad,” Spelling, 51, said. “I felt sad for the second chapter she had, and I was so excited for that chapter for her and wanted her so badly to have that.”
During last week’s episode of her I Choose Me podcast, Garth told therapist Adele House that her final interaction with Doherty came as they were leaving a fan convention in Florida last year.
She was flying back to New York and Doherty was jetting back to Los Angeles.
“(Shannen) came to me right before they left and she was like, ‘We’re going on this plane. You’re welcome to come with us, Jennie.’ And I can see her saying it, and that just keeps playing over and over in my mind,” Garth said.
Doherty died July 13 at the age of 53 after a lengthy battle with cancer, with a publicist revealing that the actress was “surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie.”
Her oncologist Dr. Lawrence D. Piro described Doherty’s final moments in an interview with PEOPLE, saying that she left this world feeling nothing but love.
“In the last few hours, she was in a place where she was very comfortable and sleeping and transitioning, and she was surrounded by some of her very close friends,” he told the outlet. “The room was surrounded by a select group of friends that were giving her a lot of care and support. It was somber and sad, but beautiful and loving. The hardest thing about this was that she wasn’t ready to leave because she loved life.”
The 90210 alum — who played Brenda Walsh on the popular ’90s teen Fox series opposite Jason Priestley, who played her twin brother; Perry, her love interest; and classmates Garth, Spelling, Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green — was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, but she announced that she had gone into remission two years later. In 2020, Doherty broke the news the cancer had returned and was Stage 4.
Last summer, Doherty revealed that the cancer had also spread to her brain as she tearfully posted a video of herself going through “the process of getting fitted for the mask which you wear during radiation.”
In November, the Charmed star was devastated when she learned the cancer had spread yet again to her bones.
But as she underwent treatments, Doherty still managed to attend fan conventions and hosted her own podcast called Let’s Be Clear, in which she spoke candidly about her life and her optimism for her future.
Just last month, Doherty remained hopeful that her new cancer treatment would improve her odds at battling the disease.
“I got to say that there is some positivity there, and the positivity is that because my molecular structure of my cancer cells changed recently, it means that there’s a lot more protocols for me to try,” Doherty explained (per The Wrap). “So, you know, for the first time in a couple of months, probably, I feel hopeful because there are so many more protocols now, whereas before I was hopeful, but I was still getting prepared. Now I’m like, oh, I don’t need to be prepared. I need to go on a vacation. I need to go on a boat again and explore places.”
Still, Garth said Doherty’s death came as a total surprise when she heard the news.
“It’s crazy that we could be shocked knowing that she was sick and knowing how hard she was fighting, but it still felt shocking … (I) never thought (she) would succumb to cancer,” Garth said.
Elsewhere in their conversation, Spelling opened up about her final conversation with Doherty, telling Garth she was “super grateful” the two were able to reconnect before Shannen’s death.
“I’ve had a lot of death in my life, and I don’t believe in regrets,” Spelling said (per PEOPLE). “But I have a lot of regrets that I didn’t have that time to have a second chance to get past stuff from the past and look at all the good things and really talk it out and have that last conversation.”
While Garth said she was happy that Spelling had gotten closure with Doherty, Jennie admitted that she hadn’t spoken with Shannen recently.
“I was thinking definitely of you, Tor, and how happy you must have been to have that time with her and to have that sort of just reconnection on a deeper level as both of you matured and grown and learned so much,” Garth said.
“I wished that I had had that opportunity because I didn’t really get to sit down and have like (a) heartfelt conversation with her recently, but I was very glad that you did.”