Tori Spelling reflects on 'lost years' with Shannen Doherty and later reconnecting
The "Beverly Hills, 90210" costars met as teenagers.
Tori Spelling is grateful for having reconnected with Shannen Doherty before she died July 13.
In a special edition of her MisSPELLING podcast Sunday, the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum 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."
The two became close friends when they were cast on Fox's teen soap, which became a phenomenon in the '90s. They were close friends at first, but they ended up losing touch for years, sometime after Doherty was fired following the show's fourth season. Spelling's father Aaron Spelling, who died in 2006, was the show's producer.
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Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling were good friends when Doherty died.Related: Shannen Doherty's costars Rose McGowan, Jason Priestley, Brian Austin Green, and more pay tribute
In April, Spelling appeared on Doherty's Let's Be Clear podcast, where they talked about what went wrong in their relationship. They couldn't pinpoint an exact moment or event, but Doherty noted that Spelling's boyfriend at the time contributed. For her part, Spelling said the unnamed love interest was "abusive" and an "addict."
Doherty said, "I specifically remember looking at you and saying, 'You have to end it with him, or I'm going to actually kill him. Like, I can't stand by and watch this.'"
Related: Charmed star Alyssa Milano reacts to Shannen Doherty's death: 'The world is less without her'
After that, they began "drifting apart."
There were also problems in the cast after those first few seasons, like when they — Spelling included — confronted Doherty about shooting magazine covers without all of them.
Spelling and Doherty had clearly moved on from all that.
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In her new podcast episode, 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."
Doherty was 53 when she died.
For Spelling, "it was really tough" to hear the sad news.
Related: Shannen Doherty praises Kate Middleton's 'strength' following cancer diagnosis
"I was sleeping with two of my children in their bed on the Sunday morning I found out," she recalled. "And my phone, I had it on silent, but it kept buzzing. And it kept going off, kept going off. I checked the time and it was 7 a.m. And I knew immediately, I was like, oh my God, somebody's passed. Somebody important has died."
More than sadness, she said, her first reaction was anger.
Related: Tori Spelling shares '90s throwback pic with Mark Wahlberg, Shannen Doherty, and Brian Austin Green
"I felt mad for the life that wouldn't continue, the life that had so much to offer, not just herself, but everybody around here, this huge, I want to say ember...," Spelling said.
"And I know for everyone around the world that was going through something, whether it was cancer or any other kind of disease or ailment or connected to a hard time they were going through or any kind of hardship, because it's, again, it's all individual. They really did look to her for inspiration and kind of power to carry on in the moments when they felt they couldn't. And I got to see that in person. I got to see that in person in her whole life, which is beautiful."
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