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Beverly Hills, 90210 actor Jason Priestley gave an update on how his former co-star Shannen Doherty is doing amid her ongoing battle with stage 4 cancer. Priestley has a series called “Private Eyes” and spoke to Australia‘s Studio 10 Tuesday about the 90210 reboot and his relationship with Doherty. “I reach out to Shannen every few months, just to check in on her and say hi. Shannen’s a real tough girl, and Shannen’s a fighter and she’s always been a fighter and I know that she will continue to fight as hard as she can. Last time I heard from her, she was in pretty good spirits,” he explained.
Doherty revealed her diagnosis on Good Morning America in February. The 48-year-old actress announced, “It‘s going to come out in a matter of days or a week that - I’m stage four. So my cancer came back. And that’s why I’m here. I don’t think 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? Who else besides me deserves this? None of us do. But I would say that my first reaction is always concern about how - how am I going to tell my mom, my husband.” Her diagnosis came three years after she went into remission from breast cancer. Priestley told PEOPLE when he heard about the news, “I reached out to her yesterday when the news broke. She’s overwhelmed with well wishers and with people reaching out to her. I haven’t heard back from her yet, but I’m sure that I will very soon. Shannen was a big part of my life. Shannen and I will always have a bond that is very meaningful. I’m very heartbroken about the news and I wish her and her family the best in this very difficult time.” Doherty explained in and Instagram post in February that while she has days where she is depressed she is also just “embracing every day.”
With her initial breast cancer diagnosis in March 2015, the actress was candid and documented her battle on social media. But this time around, Doherty was set to star in the 90210 reboot and she decided to keep the news to herself and went back to work on the set. Friend and former co-star Luke Perry passed away 4 months prior. “It‘s so weird for me to be diagnosed and then somebody who was, you know, seemingly healthy to go first,” said Doherty. “It was really, like, shocking. And the least I could do to honor him was to do that show. I still haven’t done, in my opinion. So it’s a hard one.” In addition, Doherty explained she wanted to prove she was still able to work. “One of the reasons, along with Luke -- that I did ’90210’ and didn’t really tell anybody because I thought, people can look at that [and see] other people with stage four can work too. Like, you know, our life doesn’t end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do.”