ENTERTAINMENT
Shannen Doherty says her ‘really horrible marriage’ contributed to 90210 firing
The actress revealed on her podcast that she wishes someone would have sat her down and explained the potential consequences of her actions at the time.
Shannen Doherty is clearing the air about her abrupt departure from Beverly Hills, 90210.
On the latest episode of her Let’s Be Clear With Shannen Doherty podcast, the actress got candid with former costar Jason Priestley about what was going on in her personal life that contributed to her character, Brenda Walsh, getting written off the teen drama after season 4 — including her ill-fated marriage to Ashley Hamilton.
“I definitely went through a lot of growing pains on that show,” said Doherty, 52. “There was beautiful moments for me, and there were really hard moments for me. Towards my last season, I was in a really horrible marriage and there were things transpiring in that marriage that made it very hard for me to consistently be on time for work. And I know that that became a very big problem for the rest of you, because as it should be, because if everybody else is on time and you’re waiting for one person, it sucks.”
Though she admitted “it wasn’t anybody’s responsibility but mine,” Doherty told Priestly, 54, she wished that someone would have sat her down and explained the potential consequences of her actions to her at the time. “I sort of wish I would have been sat down and sort of looked at and said, ‘Listen, the end result is going to be this, you are going to get fired and none of us are willing to put up with it anymore,’” she said. “‘And I understand that you have an issue in your personal life, but that also can’t bleed into work and you need to get your s— together!’”
Acknowledging that she “probably wasn’t” as forthcoming about the issues she was dealing with as she should have been, Doherty added, “I don’t think anybody knew that my father was super-sick, and I don’t think anybody knew that my husband was a massive drug addict… and it was all-consuming for me. I didn’t even want to leave the house because I was scared that he would go and get drugs.”
Doherty and Hamilton wed in October 1993 and filed for divorce five months later. Hamilton, the son of George Hamilton and Alana Collins, has spoken about his struggles with drug and alcohol addictions.
For his part, Priestley — who played Brenda’s twin brother, Brandon — said he wished he’d known what Doherty was going through. “It was incredibly hard for me and there was so many unknowns, and I wish all of us had more knowledge about what was happening in your life so we could have dealt with your situation in a more compassionate way,” he told her.
