Why America Hated Shannen Doherty – And Fans Loved Her For It

Rest in peace, Shannen Doherty – the quintessential Hollywood bad girl of the 90s, Heather-est from Heathers. Doherty made himself a legend Beverly Hills, 90210, the best teen TV drama by a mile, starring as teen mayhem and drama factory Brenda Walsh. The world is mourning the news of Doherty’s death, aged just 53, after an excruciatingly public nine-year battle with cancer. However, he faced his health struggles with the same fighting spirit he brought to everything he did. Doherty was always defiantly herself, America’s difficult-girl nightmare, which made her the most reviled celebrity of her time. But he wore it with pride. “I have a rep,” she said in 2010. “Did I earn it? Yes I did.”

She always had that wonderfully smug grin, from 90210 for her Let’s be clear podcast. That grin, more than anything else, made her controversial. It wasn’t her short marriages or her “difficult” workplace rep or her tabloid feuds that made her the ugliest woman in Hollywood—it was her smile, her cold, self-satisfied look of knowing that she was shit. For that America could not forgive her – she beloved being Shannen Doherty and refused to apologize for it. Nothing she went through, even in her later years, could break that grin.

She exploded just before the ’90s explosion of feminist pop culture as the Alanis/Fiona/Courtney/Missy/Liz/Left Eye revolution took off. She was the jagged little pill that America couldn’t swallow, and she had it publicly crucified. But that’s why so many of us idolized her.

In the Heathers, Winona Ryder’s Veronica Sawyer asks, “Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?” Doherty, as queen bee Heather Duke replies: “Because I do can be.” Only Doherty could give that line such a stiletto twist.

I saw her last year making a rare public appearance at a ’90s pop culture fan convention in Florida. She had the longest lines at her autograph booth – fans told me they camped out for hours before her sessions started. Everyone knew he was battling cancer, so it was touching to see the crowd erupt when he came out for a Charmed reunion panel, saying it “felt great,” holding court with the same fiery smile. She also refused to attend Beverly Hills, 90210 reunion panel, with almost all of her castmates, even though she was right there in the building — she scheduled an autograph session while it was happening. What a power move by Brenda Walsh.

Even before 90210, Doherty was fierce. He was just 17 years old when he became one of the greatest movie supervillains of all time Heathers, as mean high school girl Heather Duke. It was supposed to be a star vehicle for Winona and Christian Slater, but Shannen steals it, especially in the funeral scene. She’s dressed to kill, with black gloves and a royal wedding hat. She kneels by the casket to pray for her dead friend’s body. “I have prayed many times about Heather Chandler’s death,” she tells the Lord. “And I felt bad every time I did it, but I kept doing it anyway. Now I know you understand All. Glory to Jesus! Hallelujah!” Her sadistic smile is still shocking after all these years.

Doherty was a child actress who appeared in Little House on the Prairie when he was 11, alongside frontier patriarch Michael Landon. She credited him with inspiring her combative streak. “He told me, ‘Go with your instincts and don’t let anyone walk over you and always stand up for what you believe in,'” she once said. It stood out in the bizarrely understated masterpiece Girls Just Want to Have Funone of the best teen movies of the 80s, as Sarah Jessica Parker’s little sister.

But she became a household name with Beverly Hills, 90210. “This receptionist said to me, ‘What you’ve done for brunettes is amazing,'” Doherty said. Rolling Stone in a 1992 story. “‘It’s always the blondes who get the guy, who have the wonderful life, who are perceived as the prettiest. And you changed it completely.” Brenda and her twin brother Brandon (Jason Priestley) had just moved to Beverly Hills from Minnesota. The Walshs were an innocent Midwestern family fallen into the decadence of SoCal, where her mother fretted, “You didn’t wear that much makeup in Minnesota.”

The joke was that Shannen had no Minnesota in her—her family was from Memphis, but she grew up in LA with showbiz written all over her face. “I dress more for my figure than Brenda does,” she said Rolling Stone, explaining why she wore a bodysuit to the interview. “She would probably put a dress over this bodysuit to hide. More apple pie from Brenda, the girl next door, America’s sweetheart. This was not Doherty’s style. Her glamor was more in line with the LA driver era – she made a fantastic hair metal muse in a video for Slaughter’s power ballad ‘Real Love’. Brenda was originally written as the cute and wholesome heroine, but Shannen turned it around with her sheer force of personality. Brenda has had drama with almost everyone at West Beverly Hills High School, dating bad boy Dylan. (Luke Perry died tragically of a stroke in 2019, aged just 52, a year younger than Doherty.) Jennie Garth played her best friend Kelly, but they despised each other the other; a fight on set became so intense that Brian Austin Green had to break it up. (Green and Doherty laughed about it last year on her podcast.) Tension exploded with the Brenda/Dylan/Kelly love triangle. Dylan and Kelly try to keep the secret, until the legendary scene when Brenda catches them at a restaurant. Naturally, she turns an awkward public encounter into World War III, snarling, “Kelly, if you’re trying to lose your bimbo image, I honestly don’t think it’s going to help.” If you doubt her acting prowess, watch her in this scene: she was a genius at hostile eye contact. Doherty made it a classic TV moment – ​​even if Dylan really was made it belongs to kelly, sorry.

Brenda became the most hated character on television. FAIRY Ben is dead made a spin-off called I hate Brenda, with lines like “Shannen: The Other White Meat” and fantasizing about Ted Nugent hunting her with a bow. Plus a spin-off album full of bangers like ‘Brenda Can’t Dance To This’ and the sultry slow jam ‘Horny Brenda’. He came with an “I Hate Brenda” t-shirt riddled with bloody bullet holes. When Doherty hosted Saturday Night Live in 1993, it became a horribly misogynistic, get-the-guest episode, sadly typical of it. SNL It was. In one sketch, Doherty was benched at the Salem Bitch Trials, with the entire cast chanting, “Bitch on fire!” (When Luke Perry hosted SNLone of the first jokes in his monologue was “Be nice or I’ll take Shannen after you.”

The tabloids were obsessed with her public fights, especially when she fought Paris Hilton over Rick Salomon, Doherty’s ex from a quickie marriage in Las Vegas. When her name came up The Simple LifeHilton simply sniffed, “I hate that girl.”

Doherty was the bad conscience of ’90s childhood, which is why America was so fascinated by the idea of ​​hating her. Like Brenda, she was judged by ridiculously hypocritical double standards, sexualized and then demonized for it. She was about one-sixth more destructive than your average Hollywood male star of the time, yet she was constantly judged for being the worst-case scenario of a real-life, stalked-in-public Salem Bitch. Attempts. However, she refused to back down or play nice. This bitch wouldn’t burn. The 1992 ABC TV movie Obsessed it’s largely forgotten now – it’s total rubbish, but Doherty is brilliant in it. Her character spends the film stalking her ex, who is (of all people) seventies character actor William Devane, who was in McCabe and Mrs. Miller before she was born. (When this movie comes out, she’s 21, he’s 53 — 2.5 times her age.) Sure, the movie casts it as an innocent family seduced and ensnared by a stereotypical psychotic sexpot, but Shannen’s wild intensity she makes it very different – she’s in a totally different movie than anyone else on screen. It’s full of normal people living their hypocritical lives, all agreeing to it she’s problem. But she doesn’t see it that way, and she won’t play that role. It’s Alanis “I’m not quite as good and I thought you should know” brought to life.

Doherty switched to Charmed, in a trio of witch sisters with Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs. After three seasons of conflict with Milan, Charmed eventually killed off Doherty’s character and replaced her with Rose McGowan. Doherty reprized the role of Brenda in 2008’s Terrible Beverly Hills, 90210 reboot and again in campy 2019 BH90210 short series. She also had a great 2006 reality show on the Oxygen network: Breaking up with Shannen Doherty. Every week, he met people desperate to escape their dysfunctional relationships, so he stepped in and did the breaking up for them. A perfect use of her skill set: the emotional assassin.

to Charmed Last year, she continued to snuggle up on the couch with Rose McGowan, who said her biggest career regret was that she and Shannen didn’t overlap on the show so they never ended up being witch sisters . A fan asked if Rose, Shannen and Holly-Marie Combs would say the Power of Three ritual together since they never had the chance on the show. It was indescribably moving to see these three women—all Hollywood outcasts, all women discarded and demonized in different ways, all numbered and undone—huddle together and sing, “The power of three will set us free!”

It was a moment that said so much about her strength and why she will be missed and remembered. But he always lived up to his answer to Winona Heathers. Why did it have to be Shannen Doherty? Because it could be.