Less than a year after her friend and on-screen love interest Luke Perry died suddenly from a stroke, actress Shannen Doherty has revealed she is once again suffering from cancer.
Doherty went into remission from breast cancer five years ago but revealed on Good Morning America she now has stage four cancer.
The 48-year-old actress cried as she made the revelation and said she had been private about fighting the cancer for a year because she wanted to prove she was able to work.
"It's going to come out in a matter of days or week that I am stage four, my cancer came back and that's why I am here," Doherty said.
"I don't think that I've processed it.
"It's a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways.
"I definitely have days where I say, 'Why me?' And then I go, 'Well, why not me? Who else besides me deserves this?' None of us do."
Doherty is most famous for playing bad girl Brenda Walsh on the long-running 90's TV drama series Beverly Hills 90210, where she was cast opposite Perry's Dylan McKay
Her announcement comes almost 11 months to the day since Perry died at age 52 and she said his death in part inspired her to keep working.
"One of the reasons, along with Luke — that I did 90210 [reboot] and didn't really tell anybody, because I thought, people can [see that] people with stage four can work too," Doherty said.
"Like, you know, our life doesn't end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do."
Stage four cancer means the illness has metastasised to another part of the body to form secondary cancers. The condition is typically difficult to treat.
Another former cast mate, Brian Austin Green, helped Doherty through her darker moments during the show's ultimately failed reboot.
"I had moments of great anxiety where I thought, 'I can't really do this,' and Brian was the one person who... of that group of people that knew, that I told, like, pretty quickly," Doherty said.
"So prior to shooting he would always call me and say, 'Listen, you know, whatever happens, I have your back'."
Doherty had previously been extremely candid about her cancer battle, talking about it openly on social media platforms.
