‘On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease’
After a lengthy cancer fight, Shannen Doherty has died at the age of 53.
“The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace,” Sloane added.
In November, the Charmed star was devastated when she learned the cancer had spread yet again to her bones.
“I don’t want to die,” she told PEOPLE that same month. “I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better.”
Despite her grim diagnosis, earlier this year Doherty credited her positive outlook with helping her mental and physical health as she continued to fight.
“Every day is a gift, and there are so many new things in the works that I think hope is always there,” she said. “I think it’s so important. Listen, I can die today, I can die in 20 years, I don’t know. I can die walking outside of my house and a tree falling on me or a bus hitting me, whatever. Or I can die of cancer. But all I can do is live each day in as much as a positive manner with hope as I can and embrace it and feel like, ‘Wow, I get to wake up again today, what can I do?’”
“I thought I was fine, cut to now. I am having to go back on chemo,” she said in a clip posted to her Instagram on June 24th. “I now know that I can’t do it the way that I was doing it … The idea of going through that all over again has wrecked me.”
Doherty went on to add that she didn’t know how long the treatment would last or “if after three months, it’s not working, if we’re gonna change again.”
“That’s not something that I can predict. It’s not something my doctors can predict. And it’s scary,” she said.
But Doherty remained hopeful that her new treatment would improve her odds at battling the disease.
So she had hope, but it was “mixed with (her) own bit of sadness because … we’re kind of throwing the kitchen sink at it.”
But death was never far from Doherty’s thoughts. Earlier this year, she said she has given plenty of thought to her funeral and burial arrangements.
She also knew who she wanted to attend her funeral, saying it will be a “party” and a “celebration.”
Still, the actress was hoping “to squeeze out another three to five years” predicting that advancements in cancer care would lead to longer lives and an eventual cure for the disease.