Shannen Doherty is unsure about stepping back into the dating pool as she continues to battle cancer.
“Listen, I think it’s hard for somebody like me, in my personal opinion, because it’s hard to go into dating someone when you know that they might have an expiration date,” Doherty, 53, told Kelly Ripa on her “Let’s Talk Off Camera” podcast during the Wednesday, June 26, episode. “I don’t think men handle death and illness — most men I don’t want to generalize and say all men — but they don’t handle that as well as women do.”
Doherty, who revealed she had stage 4 breast cancer in 2020, confessed she thinks that she’s a “very hard sell” as a romantic partner. Ripa, for her part, wholeheartedly disagreed with the actress’ sentiments. (In addition to battling cancer, Doherty is also in the middle of a divorce with husband Kurt Iswarienko, whom she split from in April 2023 after 11 years of marriage.)
The Charmed alum shared that while she is open to dating she’s also being selective when it comes to her partners. Doherty admitted she was recently dating someone but “within 30 minutes saw a red flag” and decided not to further pursue the connection. Ripa, 53, confessed she had someone in mind to set up Doherty with and teased he was a catch but he was on the older side.
“He’s a New Yorker though but he’s rich — that’s what you need!” Ripa teased. “You need a rich, financially stable, not threatened by your fame, not intimidated by your fame. He’s older, he’s established. He presents very normal and I’ve never seen a dark side to this guy.”
Ripa added that the mystery suitor also had enough “cheese” to cover any elective surgery she might need. Doherty laughed at her friend’s sentiment and joked that she was “sold.” She shared that when looking for a partner she’s looking for “companionship” more than “anything else.”
Doherty also added that she finds herself struggling to date new people because she is “self-conscious” about her body following her various health procedures.
“I have so many scars from surgery that it’s like, how do you explain that ‘No, that isn’t from giving birth, that’s from reconstruction surgery.’ You just start to feel, as a woman, I think very insecure about yourself,” she explained. “I have never been secure with myself. Probably in my mid-30s, I got very into myself.”
She confessed that while she felt good about herself since she was in shape, the feeling left once she was in her 40s because “it all fell apart again.”
Doherty’s health struggles began in 2015 when she received her first cancer diagnosis. While she initially entered remission following treatment, the cancer returned in 2017. In November 2023, Doherty shared that the cancer had spread to her bones. Earlier this week, Doherty revealed that she was getting ready for another round of chemo.
“It’s really hard. Like, the idea of going through that all over again has wrecked me,” she said on the Monday, June 24, episode of her “Let’s Be Clear” podcast. “When you have to go to the hospital and you have to, you know, get put under [and] a port, put in you, it becomes very real in an incredibly different way.”
