‘I’m a very hard sell,’ 90210 alum says
Newly single Shannen Doherty is finding it hard to find a love match because she is battling terminal cancer.
“I’m a very hard sell,” Doherty told Kelly Ripa on a recent episode of her Sirius XM Let’s Talk Off Camerapodcast. “I think it’s hard for somebody like me, in my personal opinion, because it’s hard to go into dating someone when you know that they might have an expiration date,” she said, referring to her battle with stage 4 breast cancer.
The 53-year-old actress went on to add that men struggle to handle the idea of death and illness.
Earlier this year, Doherty revealed that Ripa had been trying to play matchmaker for the Charmed star.
On an episode of her podcast Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum said that the morning TV host offered to set her up after she appeared on Live with Kelly and Mark.
Ripa, 53, then questioned Doherty about her must-haves in a partner. “She started asking me, ‘Like what’s your list? What do you need?’ She was like, ‘Oh, I think I got somebody in mind.’”
“I was not ready at all before three weeks ago,” she said at the time. “And something happens. There’s always a trigger, just a moment that you have, somebody says something to you, your ex says one thing to you and you’re like, ‘OK, yeah, I’m good. I’m good.’ I have closure and I can move on in a really healthy way.”
Doherty said she was incredibly afraid to undergo the procedure, calling it “the most frightening thing I have ever been through in my entire life.”
“I didn’t think I was going to make it. I was positive that I was gonna die,” she said.
The revelation left her feeling “incredibly unloved” by her husband, who she had been with for over a decade.
“At the end of the day, I just felt so incredibly unloved by someone I was with for 14 years, by someone I loved with all my heart,” Doherty said.
Prior to her marriage to Iswarienko, Doherty was married to Ashley Hamilton from 1993 to 1994 and Rick Salomon from 2002 to 2003.
Earlier this month, Doherty accused Iswarienko of stalling their divorce proceedings in a bid to avoid paying her spousal support.
“It is simply not right that Kurt be permitted to prolong our divorce in hopes that I die before he is required to pay me while he continues to live his life and shirk his responsibilities to his dying wife of more than 11 years,” Doherty wrote in a filing obtained by Fox News.
“Our assets are neither difficult to characterize nor divide,” she continued in the court documents filed in Los Angeles last Friday. “Our divorce should not be complicated. It is abundantly clear to me that Kurt is intentionally delaying settlement in hopes that I will not survive the divorce proceedings.”
In their latest chat, Ripa said Doherty needs to be with someone who isn’t “intimidated” by her success.
Doherty indicated she would consider dating someone as old as 80 and remarked that she was even open to partnering up with a gay man “because it’s more for companionship than anything else.”
But the actress said that she is moving into a state of contentment with where she is in her life as she continues to fight her disease.
“I’m still here,” she said. “This is my purpose in life. This is what God chose me for specifically. It wasn’t acting. That just catapulted me to the point where people would know me and could listen to my voice. This is what I’m actually here for, and I truly and deeply believe that.”
When Ripa asked her how her treatment is going, Doherty said battling cancer is almost like playing whack-a-mole.
“You just keep on spinning the wheel, and you hope that your protocol lasts a really long time and you get the most out of it. But, inevitably, a protocol will stop working, and then you have to move on to the next,” she said.