The actress, who starred alongside Doherty on the drama series “Beverly Hills, 90210,” reasoned that her reaction had to do with reckoning with her own mortality.

Tori Spelling had ‘more of an emotional outward reaction’ over Shannen Doherty’s death than her dad Aaron Spelling’s

The actress, who starred alongside Doherty on the drama series "Beverly Hills, 90210," reasoned that her reaction had to do with reckoning with her own mortality.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

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June 30, 2026 3:44 p.m. ET

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Tori Spelling and Shannen Doherty attend the 18th Annual People's Choice Awards in 1992. Credit:

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty

- Tori Spelling opens up about her emotional reaction to Shannen Doherty's 2024 death.

- The *Beverly Hills, 90210 *alum admitted she was more emotional after Doherty's death than her father's in 2006, because she "had every feeling so repressed." She added, "I didn't know how to deal with my feelings that in my mind it was, like, you just go on."

- Doherty, who earned a legion of fans with her work on *Charmed* and *90210*, died at 53 following a long battle with breast cancer.

Tori Spelling is opening up about her emotional reaction to the death of former costar Shannen Doherty almost two years after the *Charmed *star died following a years-long battle with cancer.

Spelling reflected on her relationship with the late *Beverly Hills, 90210* alum during an appearance on Tuesday's episode of the *Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum* podcast, sharing that she "had more of an emotional outwardly reaction" to the late star's death than when her father, Aaron Spelling, died in 2006.

Doherty, who earned a legion of fans with her work on *Charmed* and *90210*, died July 13, 2024, at 53 following a long battle with breast cancer.

"I was younger then — I mean it was 20 years ago," Spelling explained when asked by Rosenbaum to elaborate. "I think I had every feeling so repressed. I didn't know how to deal with my feelings that in my mind it was, like, you just go on. And so my dad was everything to me. I mean, he's still my hero and I think about him every single day in my life."

Aaron Spelling and Tori Spelling attend the 11th Annual Race to Erase MS in 2004.

Ray Mickshaw/WireImage

However, when it came to Doherty, Spelling shared that the tragedy felt more striking due to their closeness in age. "It was this thing — and maybe it's because we're getting older and you start to think of your own mortality and what's going to happen — and it's like, 'Wait, friends my age are passing and this can happen.' That was a hard one," the mother of five explained.

Spelling recalled how she and Doherty "were best friends and then we weren't." As the actress has previously shared, the two became close friends when they were cast on Fox's teen soap, which became a phenomenon in the '90s. Although they were close friends at first, they ended up losing touch for years, sometime after Doherty was fired following the show's fourth season. Spelling's father Aaron was the show's producer.

"And neither of us really knew why," Spelling told Rosenbaum. "And I'm so lucky that because of conventions, we got to come back together and be friends again before she passed. And that meant so much to me and to her."

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Spelling noted that she attended a celebration for the one-year anniversary of Doherty's tragic death, sharing that she "got to see her mom again and see her friends," adding that the event brought back a lot of "memories and tears."

"It was only when Shan passed, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't stop crying," Spelling admitted. "And this is so un-me. But I also grew up thinking crying was a sign of weakness."

Cast of 'Beverly Hills, 90210' including Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling.

Rosenbaum, who told Spelling that he grew up in a similar manner and could relate to believing that, noted that he's come to realize crying "releases cortisol and a lot of other stuff." He added, "It's a release, you need a release. You can't go on living pretending you're fine all the time. It's okay to hurt."

"You start to realize that as we get older," Spelling interjected. "Like, you don't know it when you're younger. You're just like, 'It's not okay, you have to be fine.'"

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Shortly after Doherty's death, Spelling paid tribute to her late costar for a special edition of her *MisSPELLING* podcast.

During the episode, Spelling remembered Doherty as "someone I grew up with, someone who was my best friend, someone who at some point I had misunderstandings with and didn't have contact with and lost years with for things we were to later go back and talk about and realize it was silly."

At the time, Spelling said she was grateful to have had more time with Doherty.

"We acknowledged we had lost time, years and years, that we could have been together over things that outside influences, like, press articles, that maybe we believed, and they got to us too much," Spelling said, "or maybe inside influences, other people that we knew and worked with, had influenced either of us, probably me, because no one can influence her in a way that shaped and misshaped and unhinged our friendship. But, ultimately, we got that time to go back and say, 'None of that matters. What matters is that core friendship that we had.'"

Watch Spelling open up about her relationship with Doherty above.

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