Shannen Doherty’s doctor and close friend says the “Charmed” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” star “wasn’t ready to leave” in the moments leading up to her death.
Dr. Lawrence D. Piro, an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who has also appeared in television and films, was the late actor’s trusted adviser during her battle with stage 4 breast cancer and became a close friend who attended her lively dinner parties, People reported. He said he was among the loved ones at her bedside when she died Saturday at age 53 after a nearly decade-long battle with cancer.
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“We kept going until we couldn’t anymore,” Piro told the outlet. “The last conversation we had, she realized that things had taken quite a turn. The conversation was about love and support and caring and still pushing through. She wanted to continue with treatment and push through even though her physical condition had deteriorated a little bit. And we did.”
Without providing specific details as a medical professional because it would violate privacy laws, Piro said Doherty had been faced with “a limited set of options” in recent weeks due to her condition. Still, he said, she remained an active participant in her health care and focused on what she could do within those limitations. He described her as “an incredible fighter in everything she did.”
The hard-fighting actor went public with her diagnosis in 2015, revealing in a lawsuit against her former management company that her health insurance had lapsed in 2014, affecting her ability to get timely treatment. Since then, she’s chronicled her diagnosis, remissions and relapses, revealing last summer that the cancer had spread to her brain and, in November, to her bones.
“The last few hours she was in a place where she was very comfortable and sleeping and changing, and she was surrounded by some of her closest friends” and her dog Bowie, Piro said. “The room was surrounded by a select group of friends who gave her a lot of care and support. It was somber and sad, but beautiful and loving.
“The hardest part was that she wasn’t ready to leave yet, because she loved life.”
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Piro, who has appeared on Doherty’s podcast “Let’s Be Clear” and on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” “The Doctors” and “This Is Farrah Fawcett,” said the actor’s “love of life and desire for more life” kept her going, but that it was “incredibly painful for her not to be able to do that.”
As Doherty’s fight for survival intensified in recent weeks, she also faced the final stages of a contentious divorce proceeding from ex-husband Kurt Iswarienko, whom she separated from in January 2023 and divorced in April 2023 after 11 years of marriage. Doherty signed the divorce settlement the day before she died, waiving both her and Iswarienko’s rights to spousal support, according to a judgment filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Iswarienko signed the settlement on the day she died, the judgment said.
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Piro said he never felt the emotional challenge of the divorce drained her ability to continue fighting “on a medical level.” However, it made it “even more challenging,” he said.
However, he hoped that the actor’s legacy would be one of kindness to others.
“This tremendous love of life was inspired by a love of people and a love of being treated well,” he said. “And I think that came from being in the public eye at a young age and feeling misunderstood most of her life.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.