Shannen Doherty's ex made her suffer until the end. A day before she died, she made a decision.

In January 2023, Shannen Doherty underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour. Just before, she discovered her 11-year marriage was over.

The Charmed and Beverly Hills, 90210 star, passed away on July 13, 2024. She was 53 years old.

"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," her publicist Leslie Sloane told People. 

Doherty had been receiving treatment for cancer over the last eight years and documenting a lot of the experience publicly. She underwent surgery and radiation on her brain during the same month she and husband Kurt Iswarienko separated.

The couple cited "irreconcilable differences" in their divorce filing.

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Doherty believed that Iswarienko was involved in a two-year affair.

Launching her podcast Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty in December 2023, Doherty shared how she found out Iswarienko was having a two-year affair.

"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. "To not go in that surgery, even though, being very clear, he wanted to go, I couldn't go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed."

Instead, she was supported by her mother, brother and best friends.

"At the end of the day, I just felt so incredibly unloved by someone I was with for 14 years, by someone I loved with all my heart."

She said she became "obsessed" with finding out the truth of the affair.

"If you share 14 years together and you cheated, doesn't that person deserve the absolute truth regardless of how much that hurts them?" she said, adding that she "also spoke to the girlfriend of two years that he cheated on me with".

She said she felt embarrassed by the whole thing.

"I also take some responsibility for the demise of our marriage — actually that's not true. Let me rephrase that, I do not take responsibility for the demise of our marriage, I take responsibility for some of the issues in our marriage," she explained. 

"I take responsibility not only because of how I was but because of how cancer impacted my marriage and how it impacted him the second time around."

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Doherty filed for divorce back in April 2023.

After separating from Iswarienko in January, Doherty filed for divorce in April 2023. Her publicist Leslie Sloane later released a statement claiming Iswarienko's agent was "intimately" involved in their decision to divorce.

"Divorce is the last thing Shannen wanted," Sloane told Page Six.

"Unfortunately, she felt she was left with no other option. You can contact Kurt's agent, Collier Grimm at PICTUREKID as she is intimately involved."

Doherty believed Iswarienko was in a relationship with his agent, Collier Grimm, and that the pair engaged in an affair.

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More than a year on from separating, Doherty was still trying to divorce Iswarienko. She also requested spousal support from her estranged husband.

"While I have been unable to work, incurring exorbitant medical expenses not covered by insurance to undergo experimental treatments in hopes of prolonging my life, Kurt has been utilising the airplane, spending thousands of dollars at medical spas, jewellery stores, Gucci, and on flights for his 'agent' while simultaneously claiming that he has insufficient funds with which to support me," Doherty claimed in court documents in June, per news.com.au

According to paperwork filed, Doherty was requesting monthly spousal support of $23,000 from Iswarienko. She also wanted Iswarienko to contribute $14,000 to her legal fees amid their pending divorce.

Doherty alleged that Iswarienko was prolonging the divorce.

Doherty had been relying on the residuals associated with Charmed's streaming to supplement her income and health bills, and due to her health issues, Doherty was unable to work. 

"Although Kurt's income is substantially more than mine, he has not made any temporary spousal support payments and has made no contributions to my attorneys' or accounting fees and costs since the time our divorce action was filed," Doherty said in the filing.

"It is abundantly clear to me that Kurt is intentionally delaying settlement in hopes that I will not survive the divorce proceedings.

"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."

Shannen Doherty and Kurt Iswarienko when they were married. Image: Getty.

Doherty waived the spousal support request and signed the divorce the day before her passing.

The day following her death, People reports that Shannen was indeed able to finalise her divorce prior to her death, but not in the way she hoped. 

The day before she passed, Doherty signed a filing to waive the spousal support she had been campaigning for, per People. She agreed to a "default or uncontested dissolution" of their marriage, which means that the two had settled their divorce outside of court. 

Iswarienko signed the document on the day that Doherty passed, July 13. 

It appears that while Doherty had been requesting spousal support for the remainder of her life, when the end was near, she simply wanted to not be legally tied to Iswarienko any longer. 

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, before revealing in February 2020 that she had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. In June, she then shared that the cancer had also spread to her brain. In late November 2023, she said it had spread to her bones.

"There was a lump, and I had a mammogram and then a biopsy," she told Health Magazine in February 2019, when she first learned the news. 

"When I got the results, I was in the car with my mum and I just knew. The longer I sat, the more it started sinking in. Then I started crying. I called my husband and told him. And from there, I just put together a team." 

Doherty was previously married to Ashley Hamilton from 1993 to 1994, and Rick Salomon from 2002 to 2003.

This article was originally published in December 2023, and has since been updated with new information.

Feature Image: Instagram/Getty.

Read more on Shannen Doherty: 

• Shannen Doherty had a list of people she didn't want at her funeral.
• Shannen Doherty has passed away after battling cancer for 9 years, aged 53.
• Shannen Doherty battled cancer for 9 years before her death. Her ex-husband made her suffer until the end.
• Shannen Doherty says Alyssa Milano 'blocked' her visits when Holly Marie Combs was in hospital.
• Shannen Doherty was divorcing her husband of 11 years. She felt she was 'left with no other option'.

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