Shannen Doherty doesn’t want certain people attending her funeral.
“There’s a lot of people that I think would show up that I don’t want there,” Doherty, 52, said during the Monday, January 15, episode of her “Let’s Be Clear” podcast. “I don’t want them there because their reasons for showing up aren’t necessarily the best reasons.”
Through laughter, Doherty added, “They don’t really like me and, you know, they have their reasons and good for them, but they don’t actually really like me enough to show up to my funeral.”
The actress went on to say that going to her funeral would be “the politically correct thing to do” despite her relationship with the person she had in mind.
“They don’t want to look bad, so I kind of want to take the pressure off of them and I want my funeral to be like a love fest,” she added. “I don’t want people to be crying or people to privately be like, ‘Thank God that bitch is dead now.’ Those are the things I don’t want.”
However, Doherty herself is admittedly “horrible at funerals” when it comes to her emotions.
“I don’t know if anybody is actually good at funerals, but I am the girl who, like, literally sobs. I can’t handle it,” she added, referencing her father’s funeral. (Doherty’s dad, John Thomas Doherty, died in 2010.)
“My dad’s was very hard to keep anything together,” she added. “I was pleasantly surprised at my dad’s of who showed up. But it made me start thinking of who would show up to mine.”
Months prior to her funeral discussion, Doherty said she doesn’t “want to die,” during a November 2023 interview with People, revealing that her cancer had spread to her bones.
“I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving,” she added. “I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better.”
Doherty was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2015. She underwent chemotherapy until February 2017, revealing that April she was officially in remission. By February 2020, Doherty announced that her cancer had returned as stage IV.
“I don’t think I’ve processed it,” she shared on Good Morning America at the time. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways. … You know, our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”
Since launching her “Let’s Be Clear” podcast in November 2023, Doherty has proved that she has no plans to slow down any time soon.
“She is full steam ahead and she is [doing] great,” her rep told Us Weekly in December 2023. The following month, Doherty offered an update on her cancer journey.
“I always talk about the fact that we just need to squeeze out another three to five years, and then there’s going to be T-cell therapy or there’s going to be this,” she said during the January 1 “Let’s Be Clear” episode. “There’s going to be a lot more options that will give [us] another five years. Then in those five years, there’s a whole other group of options, and eventually there’s going to be a cure.”
