Jennie Garth Reveals She Felt ‘Very Fearful’ After 90210’s Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty’s Deaths
Jennie Garth reflected on the deaths of her Beverly Hills, 90210 costars Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty, revealing how it’s affected her outlook on life.
“It made me feel very fearful, especially just with Luke dying and now Shannen,” Garth, 52, told Tori Spelling during the Monday, July 22, episode of their “90210MG” podcast. “I just feel like, I don't know, it could be any of us [that] could go at any moment. That kind of feeling … yeah, that's scary.”
Spelling, meanwhile, revealed that since she’s “always been a fearful person” she wasn’t as scared following Doherty’s death. (The Charmed alum died earlier this month at the age of 53 after a years-long battle with cancer.)
“I didn't feel fear at all when she passed. I just felt sad,” Spelling, 51, explained. “I felt sad for the second chapter she had, and I was so excited for that chapter for her and wanted her so badly to have that.”
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Garth and Spelling played Kelly Taylor and Donna Martin, respectively, on Beverly Hills, 90210, alongside Perry and Doherty, who portrayed Dylan McKay and Brenda Walsh. The teen drama, which ran from 1990 to 2000, also starred Jason Priestley, Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green as Brandon Walsh, Steve Sanders and David Silver.
The cast remained close after the series ended but heartbreak struck in March 2019 when Perry died after suffering a massive stroke. He was 52.
In the wake of his death, the rest of the cast reunited for the short-lived series BH90210. Looking back, Garth revealed that Perry’s passing wasn’t something any of them were prepared to handle.
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“It's like a piece of your foundation that [is gone],” Garth told listeners while talking about Perry, who was her onscreen love interest for years. “No one will ever really understand unless they were there with us then [and] they went through the experience with us.”
She added, “It's kind of hard to believe that other people understand that connection.”
Garth explained that Doherty’s death brought up a lot of those same feelings. “It's crazy that we could be shocked knowing that she was sick and knowing how hard she was fighting, but it still felt shocking,” she confessed.
The actress admitted that she “never thought she would succumb to cancer” based on how much of a “fighter” Doherty was. (Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. Three years after going into remission in 2017 the cancer returned as stage IV. The cancer spread to her brain in 2023.)
“It was just shocking and makes you pissed, mad, sad, all the feelings because and then [you’re] like, ‘What the f–k?’ Because she's the one person that you didn't see this happening [to],” Garth added.
Despite being heartbroken to lose another friend within their 90210 family, Garth said she got “so much strength” from “growing up” beside Doherty.
“I learned a lot, you know, about how to stand up for myself, how to fight for things that I believed in,” Garth said of her late friend. “I also saw that she was saying what she needed to say, and I thought, ‘I want to be like that. I want to be a person that uses my voice and says what I need to say.’ So she did inspire me.”
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When it comes to what happens next, Garth and Spelling revealed they want to continue both Perry and Doherty’s legacies by attending fan events for their show.
“I feel like I need to try to be strong through that and give [the fans] us, you know, because that will make them feel better,” Garth shared. “Because I know that it made us feel better to be together after Luke passed away. There was some comfort in that.”
She continued, “There was just a thread of love and appreciation for one another [on the show] and support that we felt because we had each other. And I don't think that that will ever go away. I still feel it with Luke. I know that as time passes, it'll feel different with Shannen [too].”
Spelling added, “I can't imagine this lifetime not getting to know all of you and not going through that experience that, as we say, Jen, no one can understand. And I'm OK with that because I wouldn't have wanted to share it with anyone else besides all of you.”
