Shannen Doherty Recalls Fight With Jennie Garth on ‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ Over Pantsing Prank
Shannen Doherty still recalls the drama between her and Jennie Garth on the set of Beverly Hills, 90210.
“[Jennie] was doing, she was calling it ‘Pants-Down Day,’ where she would pull the pants on some of the crew members in a funny way,” Doherty, 52, recalled on her podcast, “Let’s Be Clear,” with 90210 castmate Brian Austin Green. “But some of them were getting pretty annoyed with it.”
In response, Doherty said she “reversed” Garth’s, 51, onset antics with a “Skirt-Up Day.” The Charmed alum said, “[Garth] always wore the men’s Calvin Klein boxer shorts under her clothes, so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. And so I did ‘Skirt-Up Day’ and oh, my God, she lost it on me, and I was just not in the mood to back down.”
Beverly Hills, 90210 ran for ten seasons between 1990-2000, with Doherty portraying protagonist Brenda Walsh for the first four seasons before she was fired from the show in 1994.
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Green, 50, remembered the altercation with Garth, calling it a “huge moment for everyone,” adding that he and costar Ian Ziering “stepped into, kind of, the middle of it to keep it from escalating.” According to Doherty, there was always a general tension between the female castmates on set.
“It was always awesome to me that the boys got along so well,” she said. “You guys were always very supportive of each other and congratulating each other, and it wasn’t necessarily the same with the girls.”
Green agreed, going so far as to say Doherty was “sugarcoating” the situation. “I remember it got really rough and competitive for you all; That was not an easy situation to watch,” he said.
Doherty’s comments come after she and former Charmed costar Holly Marie Combs claimed Alyssa Milano got Doherty fired from the series.
“[Producer Jonathan Levin] said, ‘We didn’t mean to [fire Shannen], but we’ve been backed into this corner. We’re basically in this position where it’s one or the other,’” Combs, 50, recalled on a December 2023 episode of “Let’s Be Clear.” “‘We were told [by Alyssa] it’s her or [Shannen] and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment.’”
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Combs added that while Milano, 51, alleged Doherty had created a toxic work environment, “It was nothing that any of our crew noticed, that any of our guest stars ever noticed or noted.” She said, “There’s not a director that wouldn’t work with you again. There’s not a crew member that didn’t have a great time working with you.”
Milano has denied these accusations. “I don’t know one other show that has had the success that Charmed had where the cast still speaks ill of the experience a quarter of a century later,” she wrote via Instagram. “This was so long ago that any retelling of these stories from anyone is just revisionist history.”
At a fan convention in February, Doherty clapped back at Milano’s statement. “There is no revisionist history happening in the truth that I know we told. There’s no brush flinging or shoe flinging. There is no lateness to set. There is no mediator for months on end,” Doherty shared, in part. “I recall the facts as if I were still living in them. And what I will say is that what somebody else may call ‘drama’ is an actual trauma for me, that I have been living through it for an extremely long time.”
Charmed aired for eight seasons from 1998-2006, with Combs starring as middle sister Piper Halliwell, and Milano portraying youngest sister Phoebe. Doherty played Prue, the eldest Halliwell sister, before she was abruptly killed off the show in season 3 and replaced by Rose McGowan as Paige.
