Shannen Doherty isn’t ruling out the idea of falling in love, even though it may be difficult. In 2020, Shannen revealed that her breast cancer had reached stage 4 after she had been in remission for years, and in June 2023, she shared another update that the cancer had spread to her brain several months earlier. She is still receiving treatment, but she understands that she likely has a finite amount of time left to live her life.
Amid her cancer treatment last year, she also filed from divorce from Kurt Iswarienko, which means she's now single again. Despite it all, she says that she is still open to being in a relationship, but dating while undergoing cancer treatment is a unique challenge.
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Dating and cancer don't always mix.
Shannen recently sat down with talk show host Kelly Ripa for her Let’s Talk Off Camera podcast. During their chat, Shannen talked about what it would look like to date while also receiving treatment for cancer.
“I'm a very hard sell,” she admitted.
She opened up about what a specific challenge her situation is.
“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 shared, referring to her cancer journey. And in her experience, she's found that many men don't “handle death and illness … as well as women do,” which only complicates dating for her.
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Shannen also gave an update on her cancer journey.
When asked about how her cancer treatment is going, Shannen admitted that she feels a bit like “a guinea pig on a wheel.”
“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 explained, adding that her current treatment is “probably one of the harder ones, physically.”
The conversation on Kelly’s podcast isn’t the first time the two women have talked about Shannen dating again.
In February, Shannen talked about Kelly’s desire to get her a date on her own podcast, Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty.
“Kelly is awesome because I just saw her when I did her show and at the commercial break, she was like, ‘Are you ready? Are you ready to date? Are you ready for a boyfriend? I'm going to find you someone,’” she said. “I was like, dude, just text me and you can. You're one hundred percent the right person to start setting me up. I'm fine with that.”
Going through a divorce while being treated for cancer is taking its toll.
Shannen opened up more about her ongoing divorce while she’s still being treated for cancer on the latest episode of her podcast.
“Obviously, divorce is not easy, especially when you really loved someone. And I did love my husband. And when you get so hurt by their actions that you just feel betrayed and like a sucker, it's really hard,” she said before asking for privacy as she moves into this next phase of her life. “I'm going through stuff. And when I wanna share it, I will share it.”
