Shannen Doherty, who starred in Little House on the Prairie, Beverly Hills 90210, and Charmed, has died aged 53 following a cancer diagnosis her publicist confirmed to People magazine. 

"It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease," Doherty's publicist Leslie Sloane told People. 

"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."

Doherty chose not to write a memoir.

Instead, she was busy documenting her life on the podcast Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.

The actor was refreshingly frank on her podcast, which included several star guests.

Tori Spelling, her co-star on 90210 and daughter of Aaron Spelling — the producer who sacked Doherty twice — was her guest, with Doherty also appearing on Tori's own podcast, Misspelling.

Jason Priestley, who played her twin brother Brandon on 90210, was also a guest. As was Sarah Michelle Gellar, 90210 co-star Brian Austin Green, Charmed co-star Holly Marie Combs, Christina Ricci – all of whom went on to vouch for Doherty.

On one of the podcast episodes, Doherty answered questions from audience members, one of whom asked what the biggest misconception was about her that she would like to clear up.

"I think the biggest misconception about me is that I am … hmmm … a bitch," she laughed.

"I think that's probably the biggest one.

"And if those things make me a bitch, there is something incredibly, incredibly wrong with this world and how they view women and what women are allowed to put out there.

"So, I don't really think that's on me. I think that's on society."

On Misspelling, Doherty said her assertiveness on the set of 90210 would be applauded now, but back then she was considered a liability.

Doherty spoke about getting the boot from 90210 from Aaron Spelling, a man who she described as "one of the most important, powerful, influential producers of that time period, ever".

"I just remember Aaron never spoke to me, never having a conversation, just all of a sudden 'bam, you're fired Shannen,'" Doherty told Green.

Green said the bad press Doherty used to get was unjustified.

"That was the first real example to me of sexism within the business," he said.

"And I used to say this to people all the time, I would say, you know, 'if a guy was acting like Shannen, he would be incredibly decisive with what he wants to do, very proud of his work, very up to fight for himself and he would just be hailed as this incredible professional on set'.

"'But because it's a woman doing it, you label her right away as a bitch'.

"And I was like, 'I don't get it.'

"I've always said to people you are an incredible example of someone that is … has always been incredibly kind. Always. To everyone. I've seen you around everybody.

"But at the same time, you're very good at balancing being kind with being sure of who you are and what you want and what is OK and what is not, and you will fight to the death for people."

Green said he had never run into anyone who knows Doherty who had a bad word to say about her.

Doherty spoke on the podcast about disquiet on set.

When she was offered the cover of Rolling Stone and appeared on there with co-stars Jason Priestly and Luke Perry (who played her love interest Dylan McKay), she copped backlash from some of her other co-stars. (Perry died in 2019 after suffering a stroke.)

"Maybe it's because I'm female," Doherty said to Priestly on her podcast.

"But I remember when we did that cover, I had a bunch of cast members come into my dressing room and tell me how wrong it was that I did a cover of Rolling Stone without them and that I should have demanded that everybody be on the cover.

"And I was like 'a) I'm not in the position to tell Rolling Stone what to do, two, I have a career to worry about and what a huge honour to be asked to be on this magazine cover, so yeah, no that's your problem, that's not mine.'"

Priestly confirmed that he and Perry weren't pressured in this way.

"I think that that was a different day and age, right?" Doherty said to Priestly.

"Men were paid more. You were paid more than me. You were number one on the call sheet, I was number two. And you were instantly deemed the quarterback and I think that was, particularly with Aaron, it was a very male mentality."

Doherty told Green for the most part, she didn't enjoy doing press – it was exhausting and she would get asked the same questions over and over again.

"I think the expectation that was coming my way was that I should not be doing as much press as I was doing," Doherty said.

"And what nobody realised is that I didn't actually enjoy taking my weekends and going and doing photoshoots and doing publicity.

"But I had a network and I had producers who were telling me I had to go do it."

Doherty was reluctant to work with Aaron Spelling again, but Combs convinced her to take a look at the script for Charmed given the director had sent it to Doherty himself.

Aaron Spelling, Doherty said, was enthusiastic about working with her on this next project and wasn't interested in talking about the fact that he had fired her from 90210 in what Doherty referred to on the podcast as an "ugly situation".

"But no, he didn't really want to discuss any of it. He just wanted us to move forward," Doherty said.

Doherty was drawn to Prue, the character she played on Charmed, partly because she was so different to the one she played on 90210.

"Brenda of 90210 … had so much teenage angst and made so many mistakes and was kind of selfish and self-serving in her own way," Doherty said.

"And Prue was the antithesis of that.

"She was all about her sisters and all about self-sacrifice, which I really liked as far as a career move and for me personally … I wanted to play a very solid, strong woman who put her sisters above everything else."

But it wouldn't last, with Doherty once again fired from Charmed.

Doherty said the narrative that she had quit the show was assigned to her by other people. She never quit the show, she said — she was fired.

"One of the biggest myths out there was that I quit," Doherty said.

"I don't think that there's anybody in their right mind that would quit a hit show that's paying them a good amount of money, that they actually really enjoyed working on, which was my deal, I enjoyed it."

Doherty was told by her representatives that her career would not survive another firing, so they would say she chose to leave.

Rumours would follow her anyway and her reputation, no matter how unfair, was something that preceded her.

Mallrats director Kevin Smith, who also appeared on Doherty's podcast, said he was warned about working with her, but the two got along famously.

Doherty's bad-girl reputation took its toll.

"I can be painfully shy and very self-conscious and things hurt me, really deep," she said on her podcast.

"I don't have thick skin and particularly since 2015 when I diagnosed with cancer, those walls that protected me from negative comments all sort of came down.

"And with them down, I sometimes often feel like I don't have a coat of armour anymore and that can be beautiful, but it can also be detrimental."