Dylan McKay may have picked Kelly Taylor, but Us Weekly is celebrating Brenda Walsh.
Shannen Doherty rose to fame playing Brenda Walsh on the ‘90s drama Beverly Hills, 90210 for four seasons. While she left after season 4, the actress reprised her iconic role as Brandon Walsh’s twin sister on both reboots of the show, The CW’s 90210 and Fox’s short-lived BH90210.
While Doherty wasn’t initially unsure if she wanted to come back for the quasi-revival in 2019, she made the decision to join Tori Spelling, Jennie Garth, Jason Priestley, Brian Austin Green, Ian Ziering and Gabrielle Carteris after Luke Perry’s untimely passing.
“It wasn’t long after he passed that I finally was like, ‘OK, yes,'” Doherty told Entertainment Tonight in July 2019. “I thought it was going to do well with or without me, to be honest. For me, replaying Brenda was something I said I wouldn’t do twice and I’ve replayed her now twice, so I guess I could never say I’m never going to do something again because I end up doing it.”
She added that filming the new show was a way of paying homage to Perry, who died following a stroke in March 2019.
“For me, I felt like it was honoring him and his memory and what he meant to the audience and the fans and to all of us,” Doherty explained. “As his on-set family, I felt like it was an important time for all of us to come together to honor him.”
Doherty later revealed heath issues of her own. The actress announced in February 2020 that she has been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. The news came three years after she was in remission for her first battle with breast cancer.
“It’s so weird for me to be diagnosed and then somebody who was, you know, seemingly healthy to go first,” she said on Good Morning America at the time, referring to Perry. “It was really, like, shocking. And the least I could do to honor him was to do that show. … One of the reasons, along with Luke, that I did 90210 and didn’t really tell anybody [was] because I thought, ‘People can look at that [and see] other people with stage IV can work too.’ Like, you know, our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”
Revisit Doherty’s most iconic moments as Brenda by watching the video above!
