‘I knowingly give up forever any right to receive spousal or partner support’
The day before she died, Shannen Doherty finalized her divorce from Kurt Iswarienko, ending a bitter legal battle between the two.
“This matter is proceeding as an uncontested action,” the court documents noted. Doherty also stated that she was forfeiting her right to spousal support, writing, “I knowingly give up forever any right to receive spousal or partner support.”
The formal end to their 11-year marriage came over a year after Doherty filed for divorce.
At the time of their separation, her rep, Leslie Sloane, said divorce was “the last thing Shannen wanted.”
“Unfortunately, she felt she was left with no other option,” Sloane said.
Doherty, who had been married two previous times, later took to Instagram to address the split, sharing a post that read: “The only people who deserve to be in your life are the ones who treat you with love, kindness and total respect.”
“I went into that surgery early in the morning and I went in after I found out that my marriage was essentially over, that my husband had been carrying on an affair for two years,” she said. “I couldn’t go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed.”
The Charmed alum said she was incredibly afraid to undergo the procedure, calling it “the most frightening thing I have ever been through in my entire life.”
Just a few weeks before she died, Doherty accused Iswarienko, of stalling their divorce proceedings in a bid to avoid paying 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. “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 her filing, Doherty was demanding $15,434 a month in spousal support from Iswarienko, claiming she was set to lose her SAG health benefits because she was no longer working and her Charmed residuals had decreased.
Doherty’s longtime publicist confirmed Sunday, July 14, that the actress “lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease.”
After her death, Doherty’s friend lashed out at Iswarienko’s callous disregard towards “his dying wife.”
But Furiani said her friend’s ordeal was compounded by Iswarienko legal manoeuvres.
“Her pain and suffering in the months preceding it didn’t have to be so profound if her husband was just a decent human being. Could have just displayed a little humanity to his dying wife … Her husband was dragging his feet with income discovery in court, in an effort to delay a judgment or payment, until she died (where it would now be moot). She believed this is what he was doing and she said as much, publicly, just a month ago.”
Many of Doherty’s co-stars paid tribute to the actress upon learning the news of her death, including her 90210 colleagues.
Tori Spelling, who played Donna Martin on the series , shared a photo of the two to her Instagram Stories with a string of brokenhearted emojis.
“I don’t have outward words yet,” Spelling wrote. “But WE knew and that’s what matters.”