Best known for her starring role in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, Sarah Michelle Gellar posted a touching tribute to her lifelong friend Shannen Doherty after Doherty recently passed away from cancer.
Shannen Doherty’s Cancer Journey
Shannen Doherty was an actress in both film and TV for around 40 years, dating back to before she was a teenager. She was best known for her roles in “Little House on the Prairie”, “Charmed”, and “Beverly Hills, 90210”.
Unfortunately, in 2015, Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer. Due to her claiming that her employer failed to make insurance payments on time, her coverage lapsed around this period, which led to her cancer not being diagnosed until it had already begun to spread to her lymph nodes.
After having surgery to remove some of the cancerous tissue, as well as going through radiotherapy and chemotherapy, Doherty announced that her cancer was in remission in 2017.
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However, in 2020, Doherty said that the cancer had come back about a year prior, and advanced to stage four, which is the most severe form of cancer and means that the cancer cells have spread throughout the body, far from where they originated.
Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Heartfelt, Emotional Tribute To Shannen
Over the next few years, she continued to receive treatment, but the cancer continued to spread to different parts of her body, eventually becoming terminal, and she sadly passed away on July 13th 2024. Soon after her passing, Sarah Michelle Gellar posted a heartfelt tribute to her friend on Instagram.
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For those unfamiliar, the pair had been close friends for around 30 years, dating back to the 1990s as both were stars of Warner Bros. shows. Since then, their friendship blossomed into a very close one that spanned multiple decades.
The post on Instagram has a collection of photos of Doherty and Gellar together over the years, with some being very recent and others dating back decades. In the caption, she struggled to find the words to sum up 30 years of friendship and says that she has to remind herself that the only reason the loss hurts so much is because of how much love there was between the two.
She also makes note of Doherty’s love for animals in the caption, and urged fans to support their favorite animal charities, either through donating funds, stopping by a local shelter to spend time with the animals there, or even tagging them in the comments so others can check them out.
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During her life, Doherty spent a lot of time fighting for animal rights and used her fame and platform as an actress to try and get laws passed that would protect animals. She also had a German Shepherd named Bowie that she absolutely adored.
Many people also offered their support and kind words in the comments, and the Instagram post from Gellar currently has more than 10,000 comments from fans, supporters, and fellow actors/actresses alike giving well wishes to her, offering their sympathy, and showing love to Doherty.
