Shannen Doherty Details How She Struggled to Hold a Glass After Brain Surgery: ‘I’m Not a Quitter’ (Exclusive)

Shannen Doherty talks about the most difficult moments of her long journey against cancer.

After revealing that she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in February 2020, Beverly Hills 90210 and Enchanted actress, 52, tells PEOPLE in the latest cover story that she’s been struggling after undergoing radiation to remove a brain tumor earlier this year.

That’s just one of the topics he plans to cover in his upcoming memoir-style live podcast, Let’s be clear with Shannen Dohertypremiering December 6.

Shannen Doherty was preparing for cancer surgery in January 2023.

Shannen Doherty/Instagram

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In June, Doherty shared an emotional video with fans of herself wearing a flexible mask and undergoing a CT scan at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in January, when her surgery was performed.

“They had to remove it and dissect it to see its pathology,” she says now of “Bob,” the tumor she named. “It was definitely one of the scariest things I’ve ever been through in my entire life.”

Shannen Doherty: ‘Yes, I have breast cancer’

After the surgery, Doherty says, she had problems with her right hand and couldn’t hold a glass or fork for three or four months.

“They put you on so many steroids. This is to remove brain swelling. I have a terrible reaction to steroids, so I tried to reduce it, and then the brain would swell a little more, and the hand would stop working completely – she says. “We persevere through all kinds of craziness, don’t we?”

But Doherty worked hard to regain her motor skills.

“The first time the glass went straight through my hand, I was like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. This is not happening. I’m going to work on it.’ And so I am,” she adds. “You think, ‘Could they have gotten more of that particular tumor?’ But it takes persistence, a lot of dedication and faith to overcome some things. I don’t give up.”

Shannen Doherty (right) poses with her mother Rosa (left).

Shannen Doherty/Instagram

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015: after undergoing a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, she announced in 2017 that her cancer was in remission.

Three years later, she discovered that the disease had returned and spread, and that doctors had diagnosed her with stage four cancer.

The star credits her persistence to her mom, Rosa, a Southern-born redhead who ran a beauty salon and was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm when Doherty was 8. At the time, she was given a 10% chance of survival.

When Rosa woke up one morning, her eyebrow was paralyzed – and she also worked tirelessly until she could move it.

“I come from a woman who was determined. She impressed that on me as a very young child like: ‘You don’t give up. You just have to work hard at it,’ says Doherty.

She and her older brother Sean grew up in Los Angeles with their father Thomas, a financial adviser, who died in November 2010 aged 66, almost a year after suffering a stroke on Christmas Day.

“I think I’ve always been a fighter,” Doherty recalls of her childhood. “I was raised to be very strong and to be able to do anything I put my mind to.”

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With a positive outlook, Doherty remains hopeful about her treatment.

“The thing I like to say to anybody — myself included — is that it’s about pushing through the next two, three, four and five years, because in that time period there will be another new protocol, a new clinical trial,” she adds. There is always something. So it’s just trying to get to that point.”

PEOPLE cover by Shannen Doherty.

John Russo

As she faces ups and downs, she relies on her support system.

“I don’t think there is a decision I make without making it [my mom] into consideration. I love her and I’m incredibly grateful to her for being a great mother,” she says. “I consider my brother and his kids, my dog, my animals.”

With a full life, Doherty is not afraid of death. “I know where I’m going. I know the people I’m going to see. I think I’d be scared to death if I wasn’t a good person, but I am,” she says. “I don’t want to die. That’s the difference. I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t want to die, like always.”

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