Shannen Doherty’s mom is speaking out for the first time since her daughter’s death.
Doherty died one month ago, on July 13, after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. Before her death, Doherty created a podcast called Let’s Be Clear, where she detailed the ups and downs of her life, her health battle, and her truths.
Now, her mom is keeping Doherty’s memory alive by getting behind the mic her daughter had been using for the last several months.
“Hello, let’s be clear friends. I want to thank you all for all the support, outpouring of love and support that you’ve given Shannon over the years and now for her family,” Rosa Doherty began the episode shared on Aug. 14. “We appreciate it so very much and appreciate all of you for all the years that you’ve followed her and loved her.”
Rosa went on to say that her goal is to do her “best to try to continue this for [Doherty] because that’s what we discussed she wanted me to do.”
“Of course, I’m not her. I could never be her. I’m not as well-spoken as she was, but I’m here for all of you and I hope you’re all here for me,” Rosa continued.
Also on the podcast was one of Doherty’s closest friends, Anne Marie Kortright, who has been by Rosa’s side since her passing.
“I remember the day after [Shannon’s death] I said to my husband, ‘I have one job right now. I know what Shannon would have wanted me to do, and people would have thought many things, but the one thing that I knew was my job till the day I die is to make sure that I call my Mama Rosa every morning and just find out what she’s doing,” Anne Marie shared. “I’m very annoying.”
As Rosa continued, she said she hopes that her daughter’s legacy will “will be the love that she gave to everybody that she knew, and the love that she gave to people that she didn’t know.”
Now, Rosa hopes to keep Doherty’s fans apprised of what is going on in their lives through the podcast going forward.
Doherty and her mom were very close. As Anne Marie said, they were one of the best mother-daughter duos she’s ever known.
In one of the episodes just before her death, Doherty opened up about preparing for her passing so that her mom isn’t left with a mess to clean up in her absence.
“I had an experienced very very very recently when I was in Tennessee where I had decided that I was going to get rid of a place there,” Doherty explained in the episode.
“I just felt that even though I have a lot of hopes and dreams and I’m a fighter, and I believe in science, and I think that something will come along that will keep on prolonging my life, I still felt that I needed to make things clean just in case,” she continued.
A the time, Doherty said she still believes in living life to the fullest but admits it’s her decade long battle with breast cancer that “has really made me take stock of my life and shift my priorities.” And her priority at this moment was her beloved mom.
“My priority at the moment is my mom and about making things…I know it’s going to be hard on her if I pass away before her, but so sorry,” Doherty says as she starts to get emotional. “This is a hard one for me.”
“But because it’s going to be so hard on her, I want other things to be a lot easier, meaning that I don’t want her to have a bunch of stuff to deal with. I don’t want her to have four storage units filled with furniture.”
Doherty says she enlisted “a really good friend Julie” to help her go through her things. The actress admited that it was a really emotional thing to do, saying if felt like she was “giving up on a dream.”
But in the end, Doherty called it the right thing to do for herself and her mom. “As I was so sad about giving something up. I’m also now reminded of the freedom giving that up has given me to then provide memories not only for myself, not only treasured moments for myself, but for the people that I love.”