One year after Shannen Doherty‘s death, Ian Ziering opened up about the loss of his Beverly Hills, 90210 costar.
Taking to Instagram in the early hours of Monday, July 14, Ziering, 61, explained why the post served as his first online tribute to Doherty after she died of cancer in July 2024.
“When she died a year ago, I didn’t post anything. And yes, some people criticized that,” Ziering, who played Steve Sanders opposite Doherty’s Brenda Walsh in the teen drama series which ran from 1990 to 2000, wrote. “To them I say: grief isn’t a performance. It’s personal. Let people grieve how they grieve.”
Doherty’s publicist Leslie Sloane confirmed to Us Weekly in a statement on July 14, 2024, that the star died at the age of 53 one day prior, following a lengthy battle with cancer.
Ziering’s touching Instagram post reflected on the late actress’ unparalleled personality. “When I first heard she was sick, we had nearly a decade more with her. And even then, most of the updates sounded less like “Shannen’s fighting cancer” and more like “cancer picked the wrong woman.” That was her way—strong, defiant, take-no-prisoners tough,” he wrote alongside a photo of the duo hugging while posing for a photo at a red carpet event.
The actor also noted how the news of Doherty’s death rocked him. “Every time I saw her during those years, she was still Shan—fierce, funny, full of life. That’s why her passing hit me like a freight train. I was shocked. I truly believed she was going to pull off one more miracle,” he explained.
Ziering revealed that he caught up with other Beverly Hills, 90210 cast members in the year since Doherty’s passing, adding that they have all felt her absence as well as that of the late Luke Perry. (Perry, who starred as Dylan McKay on 90210, died in 2019 after experiencing a stroke. He was 52 years old.)
“It’s been hard being together without her—and Luke. That kind of loss doesn’t fade. It just rearranges the furniture in your heart,” Ziering’s post continued before he detailed the dynamics of their friendship.
“I miss Shannen. We clashed now and then in the early years of 90210—two strong personalities will do that—but we always had respect,” he recalled. “I was the wisecracking comic relief; she was the beautiful chaos, the after-hours headline, the girl who could trash a hotel room and make the tabloids love her for it. (Stop laughing, Shan. You know it’s true.).”
Ziering noted that as the years passed, their fires faded and the pair “mellowed … grew up … understood what we’d been apart of.”
He concluded his post with a heartbreaking message directed towards his friend. “So, my dear Shannen—I think of you often. Your grit. Your fire. Your kind heart that so few really got to see. I still carry all of it with me. Rest easy, Shan. ❤️,” he wrote.
Doherty was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2015. In April 2023, she revealed that the cancer had spread to her brain.
Per Sloane’s statement in 2024, Doherty slipped away “surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie.”
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