In 2015, American actress Shannen Doherty announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite going into remission in 2017 however, Doherty just announced that her cancer has come back.
On Good Morning America this past Tuesday, she spoke candidly and openly about her health and her illness. “It’s going to come out in a matter of days or a week that I have stage 4,” CNN reports. “So my cancer came back and that’s why I’m here.”
Despite knowing that her cancer had returned, the actress has been working over the past year, doing her best to keep her head up and keep going. “It’s a hard one because I thought when I finally do come out, I would have worked and worked 16 hours a day and people can look at that and say, ‘Oh my God, she can work and other people with stage 4 can work. Our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”
But just because she can work, doesn’t mean it’s easy for her either. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways… I would say that my first reaction is always concern about how am I going to tell my mom, my husband.”
The actress shared the news now for a very particular reason. “She decided to reveal it to the world now because it was going to be disclosed in a court battle with her insurance company over wildfire damages to her California home,” CBS News reports. “I don’t want it to be twisted. I don’t want it to be a court document. I want it to be real and authentic, and I want to control the narrative. I want people to know from me.”
