Tori Spelling is reflecting on Shannen Doherty’s death nearly two years after her passing — revealing why it affected her differently than when she grieved the loss of her father, Aaron Spelling.
“I had more of an emotional … outward reaction when Shan passed than my own father,” Tori, 53, said during the Tuesday, June 30, episode of the “Inside of You With Michael Rosenbaum” podcast.
Tori’s father, a Hollywood legend, died in June 2006 when he was 83. Doherty, who was Tori’s costar on Beverly Hills, 90210 — which Aaron executive produced — was 53 when she died in July 2024 following a battle with breast cancer.
When asked why she wasn’t more emotional when her father died, Tori explained she was “younger” at the time. “I mean, it was 20 years ago,” she said.
“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,” Tori recalled of Aaron’s passing.
The Mystery Girls alum noted that her dad “was everything to me” and she was a total “daddy’s girl,” so she tried not to let the grief derail her.
“I mean, he’s still my hero and I think about him every single day in my life,” Tori said of her Emmy-winning father.
Aaron Spelling and Tori Spelling. Diane Freed/Getty Images
Tori added that when her Beverly Hills, 90210 castmate Luke Perry died in March 2019 at 52 following a stroke, she still wasn’t ready to be outwardly emotional.
“I was still in my mode of go on, go on. I was like, inside, ‘Just go, you gotta keep going,’” she recalled, adding that she put on a “strong front” when Perry passed.
Tori revealed that “it was only when Shan passed, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t stop crying.’ And this is so un-me.”
While Tori said she grew up “thinking crying was a sign of weakness,” Doherty’s death hit her like a ton of bricks.
“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.
Tori became friends with both Perry and Doherty on the set of Beverly Hills, 90210, which ran from 1990 to 2000.
Gabrielle Carteris, Tori Spelling, Brian Austin Green, Jason Priestley, Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth and Ian Ziering. Brian Bowen Smith/Fox/Everett Collection
The trio played high school pals, Donna Martin, Dylan McKay and Brenda Walsh, respectively, alongside Jennie Garth, Jason Priestley, Ian Ziering, Brian Austin Green and Gabrielle Carteris, who portrayed Kelly Taylor, Brandon Walsh, Steve Sanders, David Silver and Andrea Zuckerman, on the series.
During the podcast, Tori recalled her friendships changing with the cast as they grew up and worked on separate projects. That was the case between her and Doherty, who was fired from the hit teen drama after season 4. (Doherty later worked with Tori’s father again on Charmed from 1998 to 2001.)
“Shannen and I were best friends and then we weren’t. Neither of us really knew why,” Tori remembered.
Tori Spelling is continuing to remember Shannen Doherty in the days following her death. “We made each other laugh to the core,” Spelling, 51, wrote via her Instagram Story on Tuesday, July 16. “Full on guttural soul laughs.” Alongside the message, Spelling shared a throwback photo of the pair laughing and another where Doherty grabbed […]
Luckily, as adults, the actresses reunited for fan conventions and rekindled their friendship before she passed.
“And that meant so much to me and to her,” Tori said.
Tori noted that she attended the one-year anniversary of Doherty’s death celebration, which brought back all of the “memories and tears.”
“That was beautiful. I got to see her mom again and see her friends,” Tori added.
