August 23, 2024 • 42 mins
Shannen was looking forward to having Rose McGowan as a guest on her podcast.
And while that conversation wasn’t able to take place before Shannen’s passing, her ‘Charmed’ friend is honored to guest host an episode of Let’s Be Clear. Rose remembers their connection, their similarities, and what she learned from Shannen through the years.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is let's be clear, it's Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm Rose McGowan, and I am here standing sitting with
my dog Perlita little Pearl for our dear departed, lovely,
amazing human, the Bravest, Bravest champion. I've known Shannon Doherty
and it's a real pleasure and an honor to be
able to do this. Her legion of fans worldwide, the
(00:31):
outpouring of love and affection and from her family and
friends and just and from strangers worldwide, has been magnificent
to behold. I feel Shannon around, I feel her energy
very strongly, and I think this would be a real
good thing for her to know that we're continuing on
(00:53):
in the bravery that she showed in telling her truth
and telling her story and getting to talk about things
she wanted to express. You know, there's something when you're
an actor and a performer, you get the lines that
are given to you, and that's what you talk about,
and that's what you say. And for me when I
wrote my book Brave, and for her when she did
(01:14):
this podcast, you know, that's when you get to speak
on your own terms. It's it's a very powerful thing
because imagine you go to work and your lines, everything
that you were going to say for yourself in your
own day and your own life, coming out of your
own mouth. Your thoughts are replaced by other thoughts, by
other voices, by a committee of voices, and that's who
(01:36):
you get to be, and that's who the world knows
you as. And a lot of times we can be
painted into a corner and we become this caricature, this
kind of false identity, and you kind of can't get
out from under a b you know, it's something that
traps you. I know what that's like, and I know
Shannon definitely knew what that was like as well. And
(01:57):
we both kind of were trapped and painted into these
corners until we kind of took a hold of our
own power and unpainted ourselves. There's always backlash that tries
to put you back in that corner, the false corner,
I call it. But it's been a real amazing thing
to watch and to know how many people she helped.
(02:18):
I first met Shannon when I did a cameo with
her in a movie called Nowhere. I had been discovered
maybe ten months before this in Hollywood, standing against a gym,
crying because my boyfriend had died and a woman came
up to me. And two weeks later, I'm starring in
this crazy movie called The Doom Generation, and the director,
(02:40):
Gregor Rocky was doing his next feature, a movie called Nowhere,
and he called and he's like, it's Shannon Doherty and
Tracy Lords, who'd been in a John Waters film at
that point. And I had known Shannon, like so many
others from Little House in the Prairie a few episodes
when I arrived in the US. I watched those and
loved them, and her role as Jenny was just so
(03:04):
amazing the fact that I can remember it all these
years later, and I don't remember almost anything else from
that show, just her, It's pretty special. And then of
course Beverly Hills nine o two on. Oh. And it's
funny because I was actually living in la for a
while at that point. I was around fifteen and a half,
and weirdly, because my life is a little strange and
(03:27):
hasn't followed kind of the normal path of most people's trajectory,
I was living on my own in an apartment, and
I had been emancipated from my parents and was completely
on my own, and I loved watching nine to two
and Oh, because it felt like there was this family,
this very loving family, while they're navigating this kind of wonky,
(03:50):
weird city, this weird reality that is Beverly Hills, that
is Los Angeles. And I was kind of on a
different side of Los Angeles, not the Beverly Hills side,
but it was still very like everybody else in the
world at that moment watching that show, you know. And
so the day I met Shannon, it's a very unique day.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We were dressed, I.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Don't know how to explain it in a completely ridiculous way.
I was orange, I believe she was blue or red,
I can't remember. And our hair was teased out giant.
We had braces on these crinoline kind of Cindy lapper skirts,
you could say. They're kind of big and puffy. And
(04:34):
there was the three of us and we had giant,
giant hair, and we're talking like valley girls, like, oh
my god, did you see Eileen?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I hear she lives in Whittier.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And which is a I guess a suburb of Los Angeles.
And we were on a main street in Los Angeles
and they'd block some of it off for traffic, but
of course we looked so strange. The first thing I
really remember about being next to Shannon is that we
caused a three car pile up, a giant automobile crash,
like three cars like they stacked on top of each
(05:04):
other and had steam coming out of them, and we
were just quite the sight to behold. So, I mean,
I should have known then that our relationship started with
a giant crash, that we were meant to be and
destined to be intertwined for most of our lives, for
the bulk of our adult lives, as it turned out.
(05:24):
How strange, right, And that day Shannon was in a mood. Recently,
the last time I was wish Hannon, she actually told
me about that day and what had gone on. That
somebody around us had called her then boyfriend and lied
(05:45):
and said Shannon was kissing a crew member or something
weird like that, and her and her then boyfriend, I'm
not sure who it was at that time that you know,
there weren't cell phone so it wasn't like you were
texting back and forth blowing up each other's phones, you know,
denying something. And she was in a mood. She was
(06:08):
furious and there's just a very strange energy. And I
remember at the end of that day, I mean, she
invited me to sit in her car, her Mercedes with
her for lunch. I sat there with her for lunch
and she was just raging and I didn't kind of
understand what she was talking about. And it's amazing that
all these years later I finally got to understand and
(06:29):
understand that she was justified anger, definitely justified. Being lied
about at any stage and accused of something you haven't
done is rough, you know. So I think it actually
really impacted her relationship with that man she was with, unfortunately.
(06:52):
And that's the first time I met Shannon. But at
the same time, I remember her laughing, and I remember
her professionalism and they also I remember leaving there and thinking, like,
whoa if, I I don't think I want to be
an actor, I don't think I want a part of
this world's I don't think this world.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is for me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And then I did a movie called Scream and then
that hit and I kind.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Of got stuck in that world.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so that's how I knew her before I joined Charmed.
And the thing is that was it's a very unique time.
There was not a lot of crossover between film and
television then, and I was on a very unique trajectory.
I'd had four movies at sun Dance, the most anybody
(07:38):
had in competition there at any time when something very
bad happened to me, and it was a setup and
the whole thing down the line from a ten am
breakfast meeting with my boss. I was in the middle
of my second film for this company, his company, and
I had to go back and finish filming that movie,
(08:01):
and from the outset, I was not okay with what
had happened to me, and I fought it, and you know,
words spread like wildfire in town. I refused to sign
a non disclosure. I didn't know what that was, but
when it was explained to me, I was like, wait,
so I can't talk to a therapist. I had this
idea that if I went to six months of therapy,
(08:22):
I could then be fixed and I could.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Be back to who I was before. And that's not
how it turns out.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That was just kind of a young mind approach to trauma,
and I didn't really understand kind of the levels of
what would happen to me at that point, and I
just I felt very lost and from I'd had about
four movies lined up to do that year, probably would
have made around like seven million dollars or something like that,
and they all fell apart and I got cast in
(08:54):
a show called Charmed. Now I'd known that Shannon was
on this show, but I never watched the show. I
didn't I didn't really watch TV. I was working. I
was just doing movie after movie after movie at that
point until you know, kind of the breaks slammed and
from then on we were like really pitted against each
(09:16):
other in the media. And it also wasn't until recently
that I understood kind of the backstory of her even
leaving there, because when I got there, it was it's
kind of, you know, like what Hollywood does.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I call Hollywood a cult.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I called it that in my book Brave, and it
compares the kind of the sect, the group that I
grew up in behind walls, to the cult of Hollywood
and how how cults work in general. It was not
about sexual harassment or assault or anything like that. It
was It's an idea book and bravery and the bravery
(09:59):
it takes to live of under under a lie that's
manufactured about you. And that's something that I know, Shannon deeply,
deeply understood I. However, at the time I joined charm
did not understand kind.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Of the backstory.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I was just told she was fired and nobody talked
about her, which is what happens in cults.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
They memory hold you.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
That's a term for just kind of blanking people's memory,
and they don't mention the person they're kind of they kind.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of ceased to exist.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And I was just trying to keep my head above
water at that point. I was very famous at that point,
but I was persona non grata, non hirable. But I
was famous and caused disruptions everywhere I went. And I know, again,
this is kind of something that Shannon we later talked
about that she related to, you know, the weight of
(10:58):
what it's like to be to have the media machine
lie about you. She was vulnerable on that show. She
was vulnerable knowing what I know now, you know, knowing
that she had left nine oh two and zero in
kind of a cataclysmic way, and then when she joined Charmed,
(11:18):
I didn't really understand her passion for I didn't know
anything really about the show at all. So for me,
it was just perceived by the public as a very
strange move. Why would someone in movies, why would they
go do a TV show? And I couldn't explain, Well,
I'm famous and I can't get any other job, and
it looks interesting, and you know how it happened for me.
(11:40):
And I've told this story, you know, on stage with Shannon.
What a gift to be able to spend that last
year and a half with her, really really amazing gift.
But the story I told is I was in Romania
doing a movie and I get a call and it's
a producer named Aaron Spelling, and I hang up because
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I was like, why would Aaron Spelling be calling Romania? Haha?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Click, And I had this little voice like Rose McGowan,
would you like to join, you know, the cast of
Charmed on a show? And I was like, I didn't
really know what he was talking about, but I was
open to meeting him. So I am on a plane
home to Los Angeles. I'm like, okay, Universe, give me
a sign if I meant to be doing this. And
the weirdest thing is from never before and never since
(12:28):
have I ever seen Charmed on any airplane offered as
the entertainment on a flight and I was going from
a Romania to Los Angeles, and the pilot episode of
Charmed was the entertainment offering so strange, and it looked
cool and moody and dark and unique, and the acting
(12:50):
was really strong, And I said, yes, I didn't really
understand what it would entail.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, I'd still be here talking about it all
these years later, that there'd be legions of legacy fans
and new fans, and how interwoven we would be in
people's lives. And I think Shannon definitely did understand all
of that. She definitely understood the power of the medium
of television in a way that I had not. And
(13:20):
when I got there, it was just strange. And I
was told over and over and over, no show survives
a major cast change. You only have like two hundred
and something jobs on the line, and far more behind
the scenes of people you can't see in administration. But
no worries if everybody loses their jobs because you joining
(13:42):
it's going to tank the show.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Don't worry. It's not your fault.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And that was said to me that I was going
to fail over and over, and so I just kind
of refused to fail. And I also knew that I
was in a very vulnerable position. The thing in Hollywood
is if you got fired as a woman from a job,
you didn't get a second chance. So it was already,
you know, a miracle that Shannon was there in the
(14:06):
first place, and I think that's certainly what made her
vulnerable to kind of the operation behind the scenes that
took her out to be blunt. That's what made her
vulnerable to that, and that person knew it and that
group knew it, and that was that was she was
preyed upon in that way. And I don't think there's
anything wrong with someone wanting things to be better, and
(14:29):
that's kind of you know, they made it sound like
she was difficult. Shannon was good. She was really good.
She was a damn fine actress and director. She really
cared about what she was putting out there, as did I.
But I was in a different way joining I knew
I had no pull, and it was just very weird
(14:51):
on the set kind of from from the get go.
It was just very different universe from movies where it
might turn out badly, but everybody's all in it. There's
there's artists, there were artists there, you know, there was
and for me, I felt the business around the show,
the business people. It felt kind of like I could
(15:12):
be working at a pencil factory in Ohio churning out
things at a high volume, which was just kind of
a shock to my system. And at the time, granted,
they'd been on the air for quite a few years
when I joined, so it was a pretty well oiled machine.
They knew what they were doing. And yeah, I mean,
I imagine now with hindsight, it was so strange for everybody involved,
(15:34):
everybody there, not just me and not just Shannon, And
looking back at it, you know, from the get go,
every question was like, do you think Shannon Doherty hates you?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Do you think she's jealous of you? Do you think?
Do you think? Do you think? Do you think? What
do you think? And I refused to take the bait.
I did not.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
They wanted me kind of to continue or start a
war with her, and I just was like, absolutely not,
I will absolutely not do this. And to her credit,
she absolutely did not do that either. And that's been
something that's.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
A real world.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Class character about her, you know. And the thing is
both of us have been I just put this exactly,
but I would say they use the term parasited.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's not a word. But when a.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Parasite attached to the host body, they steal their creativity,
they steal their work, they steal their joy, they steal
their nutrients, their food, their their food supply. And that's
what a parasite does to a human body. And sometimes
I think there are parasites in human skin, and they
wear human skin.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
And you know, we both.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
In this life and on that show and around it,
and since.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Had a parasite attached to.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Us, I didn't understand a lot of what happened with
her in a way that I kind of wanted to
not know, because that way I couldn't I would not
be lying in any interviews and I wouldn't have to
(17:18):
have any feeling about it. But looking back, I mean,
putting myself in her shoes, how devastating, how devastating, and
how dare someone say? You know, if I, honestly, if
I hear a parasite say hurt people, hurt people as
an excuse for their crap behavior one more time, I
will actually scream and light the world on fire. I
(17:39):
think on Shannon's behalf and maybe my own two and
quite a few people who've experienced this. You know, there's
a narcissistic quality to parasites. They want what they want,
they take what they take, and they feel that they're
owed that, and they know that they're not the real talents,
that they are not the true ones, but they can
feed off other talent. And and I know that that
(18:00):
that's that's what was done to her and later on
done to me. And I think it is one hundred
percent valid knowing you have a ticking clock. We all
have ticking clocks, but Shannon really knew she had a
ticking clock on her to to want to talk about
this and to set the record straight for herself, because
it gets exhausting being lied about, and when you're led
(18:21):
about on that scale, as I have personally experienced. You know,
in my case, a very very evil, evil predator that
a lot of people seem to be okay with, I
just was not okay with this. Bought a medium machine,
bought journalists off all over the world.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This is fact.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
This has been put in a journalist ron in Pharaoh's
book and the New York Times book. Bought journalists contracts
and said, you know, go after this person if you
ever see them, I'll buy your I'll buy your story
and turn it into a movie, and in trade, you
need to character assassinate this person. So I'm just saying
I've I had for me. It was twenty something, two
(19:03):
and a half decades of stalking at the highest level
and ruining my good name to a point where I
couldn't fight. And Shannon knew that too. But what we
both did and what I admired the hell out about her,
she just kept working and both of us were put
in things that we wouldn't have been doing had this
not happened to us, we wouldn't have been in a
(19:30):
different playing field, so to speak. But at the same time,
this did not lessen our intention and honoring of the
work that was in front of us that we could
and were able to do. But it's very hard, and
what people don't understand is that it's not you know,
people talk about the show Charmed and Shannon leaving and
firing and like as if it was it it just
(19:51):
affected her career.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's not the case.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
When someone lies about you and they have a machine
behind them, a powerful machine affects how people in a
store where you're going to buy something, treat you. It
affects certainly how the media treats you. It affects how
people online treat you. It affects future relationships you meet someone,
how any stranger perceives you, because they have all this
(20:16):
like arsenal of kind of lies that they're taught to
believe and not question. And why would they because this
is the dominant narrative, and it's extremely hard to get
out from under the dominant narrative. And I am so
proud that our girl did that. She did that, She
did that in the end and on her terms, and
(20:38):
by doing it, she helps so many people, which is
something that for me, I, you know, I sometimes get
asked like, you know, why are you like how you are?
And I'm sure she was asked that too. The bravery
it took for her to share her health journey in
(20:59):
a town where it's all about the look and nobody
can ever see you weak, The bravery it took for
her to be real and raw. For her, it was
actually not that much, because that's.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Who she is. For other people, it would have taken.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That. GE's inconceivable that they would share those moments, these
moments of deep vulnerability, these moments of weakness, and the
fact that she knew she could help others and herself
by having a community around her all the hats off
and anybody suffering that I know she would want you
to go on and keep fighting because she fought.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
She fought.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It was amazing. Sorry that brings tears to my eyes.
Moment for shoving it down. And what I'd love about
this last year and a half, almost two years now,
it was such a gift. She never complained. She complained
(22:03):
about like stuff that, you know, why is the microphone
not sounding right? Like professional stuff, like pro stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
She's a pro. She was a deep pro. We're both pros.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
But she's a pro pro and like things to run
like a pro likes things to run. And But in
terms of her physical pain, her, if she had limitations,
if she was tired, she just kept going. And all
she would say is sometimes, you know, if too many
people tried to hug her at once, she was like,
(22:36):
you know, it's better for me not to. But she
almost always gave in and would hug anyway, even though
she was immuno compromised, which was.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
What a hero, What a heroine she was was I
hate that word.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Sorry, I'm gathering my It's hard when uh, a public
warrior leaves because there's not that many. There's not that
many that inspire me, inspire others because there's so many
(23:18):
polished people, and I think what the world needs now,
you know, more than ever are heroes, real ones, people
you can really believe in, you know, and they're not
gonna sell you out, They're not gonna lie, and they're
gonna be transparent. And when I was so happy when
I found out she was gonna come on this kind
of reunion tour that we did.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
It was so badass.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I loved sitting next to her on stage and like
all of you out there listening, you've.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Heard her laugh. God, what're a world class laugh?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right? She was fun and something I didn't know about Shannon.
I mean I did know, but like watching her, like
how many close friends she had and how she had
love of her family around her. That's something I don't
(24:16):
have as much and didn't have, and it forms you differently,
and it's really inspiring and beautiful to know that, you know,
if you do the work to heal the trauma with it,
you don't have to be frightened of people that you
can reach out a hand across troubled waters and join
hands and join forces, as we did. And we had
(24:37):
every reason. We were pitted against each other for so
many years. She had every reason not to like me,
not like personally, but just as in somebody that's attached
to a traumatic period of your life. It's very hard.
That's hard, and God, she had grace with that. She
really did. It's like incredible, And my relationship for there
(25:03):
was funny. She had a tough venire at first, you know,
and we chipped away at it. And I was not
in the best physical shape when I started, not like
anything like she has, but something different that's manageable, and
(25:26):
it was not in great shape when I started to
tour with her, and as I started to get healthier,
her started to decline.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And so I feel like there's a reason that.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
We were put together in that last year and a
half of her life. What a life she lived, she
really she lived so many lives in one life, and
that I certainly relate to. I know a lot of
us can, but she lived life on a grand.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Scale with gusto and just badass fun.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
One of the things we learned, I think from each
other by being outspoken was actually how much more similar.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
We were than different.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And about a month before she died, we got to
be together, just alone, just me and her, for the
first time ever and for the first time in twenty
five years, and it was so cool and we just
we actually didn't want the night to end. And it
was both wholesome and that word is so dorky, but
(26:34):
here we are.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was. It was sweet.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
She told me stuff that I had never known, and
I told her stuff that she didn't know, and she
had some questions for me and I answered them and
vice versa. And then she told me she was going
for some experimental treatment, and we talked about me doing
(27:00):
the podcast with her, and I was like, I'll wait
a little while longer. And I had a feeling when
she said about the treatment.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I just had this.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That this was not really going to go well. And
she looked frightened for the first time, frightened, and I
gave her a big hug and I told her I
loved her. I do regret not doing the podcast with her,
But at the same time, I think because so much
(27:39):
of our relationship had played out publicly that to have
that period of time just for us was really special.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
To get to be on stage with her and Holly
and witness their legendary friendship was really special.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
There's so much.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
About her that it's like it kind of had like
she had that kind of stardust on her.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And if I have any regrets, I wish I could
have gotten an hour sooner. I don't know how that
would have happened, but I wish we could have. Yeah,
you know, we both despised corporate feminism as they call it,
like slogans and fake fake activists and people that are
just do it for the clicks and the glory but
(28:40):
without putting in actually the work and the trauma that
it takes to do that work. That word is a
bit overused, but sometimes it's actually really what it is,
and it is and it takes a lot, you know.
So if I have regrets professionally transparently, I regret ever
(29:03):
being an actor. Yeah, I think that was the wrong
drop for me. I was quite good at it, but
like Shannon, I love directing more. And the last thing
I did in Hollywood was direct a movie and it
was nominated for Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, which was
very very proud of because only filmmakers can vote for that.
(29:23):
It's not a popularity contest. But behind the scenes it
got dismantled by my longtime stalker and his posse, and
that's when I knew that it would never ever stop.
It was never going to stop. And that's what I
said about for about four years, probably starting around twenty fourteen,
(29:45):
talking to journalists, following journalists all over the world on
Twitter as it was then called, and and writing things
in a way that they would kind of go viral
about every three weeks. I kind of tricked them and
I hashtag something called Rose Army based on the Trojan
Horse myth and the Spartans. But I didn't have a
(30:10):
big fake horse. I just had me in a hashtag
and made it sound like there are millions and millions
of us, and now there are millions and millions of us.
But then it was just me, and I kind of
was so unusual in the things I was saying for
an industry that likes only kind of the shiny false
(30:31):
narrative that I was shocking people. And again I saw
seen so many people like say, I'm a feminist. I
don't even consider myself that I don't any kind of
psychological operation that's run on the public with a narrative
or a name. I don't consider myself a part of
(30:51):
always been an outsider, and Shannon, you know, was always
an outsider too, in a different way. But she loved Hollywood,
she loved in a lot of ways, the machine of it.
I did not. I was not raised there in that way.
I was raised by artists, truth tellers, scientists, very different minds,
(31:12):
and it formed me differently the way I was formed.
And for me, the things that I'm most passionate about
are letting people know that they are better than what
they've been told, that they're braver than what they know,
and in these especially scary times, that it's really important
(31:34):
for all of us to stitch together the little joys.
I live in Mexico, and my favorite word in Spanish
is allegria and that means joy. So I see it
like kind of just stitching together these joys, right, little things,
little things birds in the trees, that beautiful rose no
pun intended, growing through the crack in the sidewalk. And
(31:57):
you know, I regret that I had to do things
that were so stressful that it gave them the ammunition
to portray me a certain.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Way, like the angry blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I was angry literally at the interviewer because I realized,
oh my god, there's a.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Whole operation being run on me.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I was in the middle of my interview, an interview
for my book, when they said you're the face of
me too, and I didn't know. I said, what is that?
And then now they're joined forever. My thing was just
like power abusers, back up, We the people have a voice,
We matter, we count all of us. And Shannon did
(32:39):
that in a different way. For people struggling with a disease,
this crippling, brutal disease that's caused by so many factors
in our environment, caused by traumatic stress that's in our lives.
I mean that eats away at us. And you know,
I do think her getting to speak her truth most
(33:02):
likely helped her live longer because it relieves that stress.
And I hate that she had relationship stress towards the
end of her life. But we also laughed about how
neither of us were particularly very good at that sort
of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Either.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It's hard being the breadwinner and being very independent and
strong and then being in a relationship, they don't kind
of always match, and I wish that she had more time,
as we talked about, to learn how to do it right,
and I wish that too. I think we were talking
(33:39):
about misconceptions, Shannon and I, and that the biggest misconception
about her is that she was hard, but that at
the same time it was the truth, but it's not
who she natively was. And I would say that's the
greatest misconception about me as well. We both just like
to laugh and soft underneath it all. She was really
(34:05):
good at being a star, better than me.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I was always kind of not great at that. I
was very impressed with her ability to be a star.
It was really cool to witness, and I had respect
for that. And I think people would be surprised to learn.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Probably that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I was always very shy, very very shy, not a
natural born extrovert, and not somebody that ever wanted to
talk about dark things or put that on people and
have them look at their own darkness in their lives
and see where they could bring light to it. But
(34:52):
I am proud of that, and I am proud of collectively.
My goal was to see if I could make a
ten percent difference in the world, that people could think
differ differently, that they could look at each other differently,
that they could treat each other differently, that the dominant
narrative of this is how is always going to be worldwide.
I was like, why, I think I just see humans
as better and I know we can be better together
(35:14):
and not divided. And that was my own personal little goal.
I slapped a hashtag on it, but that was not
it for me. It was just about being better than
you had to be because I'd been told for a
long long time that I was, you know, not worth much,
that I was worthless, blah blah blah, the boring stuff
you know that gets said, the abusive stuff from home
(35:36):
and then out in the world. And I disagreed. I disagreed,
and I still do. You know, I think we grow,
we've become different than who we are who I was
in the late nineties. It's different than who I was
in the mid two thousands. You know, when I did
Charmed for so long, I really I was looking at
(35:58):
some fashion the other day and I got really confused.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I was like, why did I look a certain way?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
And then after the show, like I think playing page
for so long, and I love that character. But I
had always kind of done more kind of artistic, strange
kind of jobs, not mainstream, and I was not.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
My whole life was not like hanging out kind of
with mainstream people. It was always kind of fringe artists, weirdos,
unique writers, and there's kind of those who thought differently,
looked differently. Certainly my first boyfriend, I was like thirteen,
and this would be in the eight late eighties, Like
he had a long skirt and like.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah so and makeup.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I just always like creative, strange looking, unique people. And
when I saw myself after Charmed, when I came out
of Charmed, all of a sudden, it was everybody had
to have a stylist and in Hollywood, and they had
to have a makeup artist. That was it was totally
(37:00):
different than when I started the show. And I hadn't
really done a lot of press during that show, just
only for the show, not like red carpets or things
like that. So by the time I finished, all of
a sudden, you had to have a stylist. So all
of a sudden, I'm being dressed like someone I'm not
by someone who I'm paying to make me look like
someone I'm not, not my taste, but I'd been un
(37:20):
charmed for so long, I'd actually forgotten who I was.
I had forgotten my own taste. And I regret that period.
I regret letting makeup artists put so much makeup on
me that I just looked like a kind of a
drag version of myself. And I regret. I regret being
lost for so long from myself. That's the one thing
(37:42):
with Shannon is I don't think she was ever lost
from herself.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Illness you lose.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Parts of yourself absolutely, And a few years ago I
went through something really horrific. I lost an extreme amount
of weight and a lot of physical suffering, an intense
amount of physical suffering, and I'm really proud to be
making it to the other side. And she was a
big part of that. She was a big part of that,
(38:12):
and inspiring and inspiring to me that she never lost
sight of who she was, She never let relationships in
her life go because of injury to her psyche or trauma.
She was just badass that way, and I honestly, I
think we could all do with a bit more of
(38:34):
that kind of loving badassery.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I don't think that's the word, but let's make it out.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I think the thing that Shannon and I were most
surprised about each other was just each other. Was that
away from everybody else, that we could be our soft selves.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
What a gift.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I tried to participate in the episode right after she died,
and let's be clear where people were sending I think
voice memos and videos talking about her, and I tried
four different times, and I would have panic attacks each time.
I've never been good about shoving down emotionally, I feel
(39:20):
something cursed, curse, curse, I've never been good at that.
I definitely wear my heart on my sleeve. I couldn't
do it.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I was not ready to to say was. So I
want to end this on a happy note, not crying.
But I know how many people miss her, and I
know how many are suffering. It's pretty amazing to have
(39:59):
been so loved in this life, and you know what,
she earned it and deserved it. So hats off to you,
Shannan Doherty, my friend, and that wherever you are, because
I feel you all around. I think you're definitely with
(40:23):
your mama, Rosa and all those you loved and your
beautiful dog, Bowie, and I know how much you loved
your fans. I don't like the word fans, but that's
the word we have to offer the people in your life,
those who didn't know your friends, that you had yet
to meet physically.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And seeing how many.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
People loved you at these cons that these conventions was
just so so awesome, so rad so cool.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
For me, I.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Am focusing.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
On getting better.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
You know, it takes a lot out of you when
you've been you know, kind of crucified by some parasites.
And I gave you know, I did my best. It
was David versus Goliath. I did my absolute best, and
I went to the mat for the people. Shannon laughed.
(41:19):
She's like, you're the only one and the whole thing
that didn't profit. And I'm like, yeah, I know, it
wasn't my goal. It would be nice, but it's not
my goal. And I'm getting back to.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Art.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I'm getting back to being the artist that I always
was and unique in different ways, and you know, getting
life from meeting people out on the road. And yeah,
I've got quite a few things up my sleeve. It'll
be cool. And I know that whenever they come out
that I'll be asking for her advice and her assistance
(41:56):
in guiding, and I asked for that now. So one
of the things that was very beautiful about Shannon was
her belief, her religious belief and it's not cool to
talk about, but I think it is actually and we
shared that, and so saying a prayer for her now,
(42:19):
lighting a candle for her always this is let's be clear.
And it's been an honor and privileged Shando, to speak
with you, for you, about you. Take care,
This is let's be clear, it's Shannon Doherty.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I'm Rose McGowan, and I am here standing sitting with
my dog Perlita little Pearl for our dear departed, lovely,
amazing human, the Bravest, Bravest champion. I've known Shannon Doherty
and it's a real pleasure and an honor to be
able to do this. Her legion of fans worldwide, the
(00:31):
outpouring of love and affection and from her family and
friends and just and from strangers worldwide, has been magnificent
to behold. I feel Shannon around, I feel her energy
very strongly, and I think this would be a real
good thing for her to know that we're continuing on
(00:53):
in the bravery that she showed in telling her truth
and telling her story and getting to talk about things
she wanted to express. You know, there's something when you're
an actor and a performer, you get the lines that
are given to you, and that's what you talk about,
and that's what you say. And for me when I
wrote my book Brave, and for her when she did
(01:14):
this podcast, you know, that's when you get to speak
on your own terms. It's it's a very powerful thing
because imagine you go to work and your lines, everything
that you were going to say for yourself in your
own day and your own life, coming out of your
own mouth. Your thoughts are replaced by other thoughts, by
other voices, by a committee of voices, and that's who
(01:36):
you get to be, and that's who the world knows
you as. And a lot of times we can be
painted into a corner and we become this caricature, this
kind of false identity, and you kind of can't get
out from under a b you know, it's something that
traps you. I know what that's like, and I know
Shannon definitely knew what that was like as well. And
(01:57):
we both kind of were trapped and painted into these
corners until we kind of took a hold of our
own power and unpainted ourselves. There's always backlash that tries
to put you back in that corner, the false corner,
I call it. But it's been a real amazing thing
to watch and to know how many people she helped.
(02:18):
I first met Shannon when I did a cameo with
her in a movie called Nowhere. I had been discovered
maybe ten months before this in Hollywood, standing against a gym,
crying because my boyfriend had died and a woman came
up to me. And two weeks later, I'm starring in
this crazy movie called The Doom Generation, and the director,
(02:40):
Gregor Rocky was doing his next feature, a movie called Nowhere,
and he called and he's like, it's Shannon Doherty and
Tracy Lords, who'd been in a John Waters film at
that point. And I had known Shannon, like so many
others from Little House in the Prairie a few episodes
when I arrived in the US. I watched those and
loved them, and her role as Jenny was just so
(03:04):
amazing the fact that I can remember it all these
years later, and I don't remember almost anything else from
that show, just her, It's pretty special. And then of
course Beverly Hills nine o two on. Oh. And it's
funny because I was actually living in la for a
while at that point. I was around fifteen and a half,
and weirdly, because my life is a little strange and
(03:27):
hasn't followed kind of the normal path of most people's trajectory,
I was living on my own in an apartment, and
I had been emancipated from my parents and was completely
on my own, and I loved watching nine to two
and Oh, because it felt like there was this family,
this very loving family, while they're navigating this kind of wonky,
(03:50):
weird city, this weird reality that is Beverly Hills, that
is Los Angeles. And I was kind of on a
different side of Los Angeles, not the Beverly Hills side,
but it was still very like everybody else in the
world at that moment watching that show, you know. And
so the day I met Shannon, it's a very unique day.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
We were dressed, I.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Don't know how to explain it in a completely ridiculous way.
I was orange, I believe she was blue or red,
I can't remember. And our hair was teased out giant.
We had braces on these crinoline kind of Cindy lapper skirts,
you could say. They're kind of big and puffy. And
(04:34):
there was the three of us and we had giant,
giant hair, and we're talking like valley girls, like, oh
my god, did you see Eileen?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I hear she lives in Whittier.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And which is a I guess a suburb of Los Angeles.
And we were on a main street in Los Angeles
and they'd block some of it off for traffic, but
of course we looked so strange. The first thing I
really remember about being next to Shannon is that we
caused a three car pile up, a giant automobile crash,
like three cars like they stacked on top of each
(05:04):
other and had steam coming out of them, and we
were just quite the sight to behold. So, I mean,
I should have known then that our relationship started with
a giant crash, that we were meant to be and
destined to be intertwined for most of our lives, for
the bulk of our adult lives, as it turned out.
(05:24):
How strange, right, And that day Shannon was in a mood. Recently,
the last time I was wish Hannon, she actually told
me about that day and what had gone on. That
somebody around us had called her then boyfriend and lied
(05:45):
and said Shannon was kissing a crew member or something
weird like that, and her and her then boyfriend, I'm
not sure who it was at that time that you know,
there weren't cell phone so it wasn't like you were
texting back and forth blowing up each other's phones, you know,
denying something. And she was in a mood. She was
(06:08):
furious and there's just a very strange energy. And I
remember at the end of that day, I mean, she
invited me to sit in her car, her Mercedes with
her for lunch. I sat there with her for lunch
and she was just raging and I didn't kind of
understand what she was talking about. And it's amazing that
all these years later I finally got to understand and
(06:29):
understand that she was justified anger, definitely justified. Being lied
about at any stage and accused of something you haven't
done is rough, you know. So I think it actually
really impacted her relationship with that man she was with, unfortunately.
(06:52):
And that's the first time I met Shannon. But at
the same time, I remember her laughing, and I remember
her professionalism and they also I remember leaving there and thinking, like,
whoa if, I I don't think I want to be
an actor, I don't think I want a part of
this world's I don't think this world.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Is for me.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And then I did a movie called Scream and then
that hit and I kind.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Of got stuck in that world.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so that's how I knew her before I joined Charmed.
And the thing is that was it's a very unique time.
There was not a lot of crossover between film and
television then, and I was on a very unique trajectory.
I'd had four movies at sun Dance, the most anybody
(07:38):
had in competition there at any time when something very
bad happened to me, and it was a setup and
the whole thing down the line from a ten am
breakfast meeting with my boss. I was in the middle
of my second film for this company, his company, and
I had to go back and finish filming that movie,
(08:01):
and from the outset, I was not okay with what
had happened to me, and I fought it, and you know,
words spread like wildfire in town. I refused to sign
a non disclosure. I didn't know what that was, but
when it was explained to me, I was like, wait,
so I can't talk to a therapist. I had this
idea that if I went to six months of therapy,
(08:22):
I could then be fixed and I could.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Be back to who I was before. And that's not
how it turns out.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
That was just kind of a young mind approach to trauma,
and I didn't really understand kind of the levels of
what would happen to me at that point, and I
just I felt very lost and from I'd had about
four movies lined up to do that year, probably would
have made around like seven million dollars or something like that,
and they all fell apart and I got cast in
(08:54):
a show called Charmed. Now I'd known that Shannon was
on this show, but I never watched the show. I
didn't I didn't really watch TV. I was working. I
was just doing movie after movie after movie at that
point until you know, kind of the breaks slammed and
from then on we were like really pitted against each
(09:16):
other in the media. And it also wasn't until recently
that I understood kind of the backstory of her even
leaving there, because when I got there, it was it's
kind of, you know, like what Hollywood does.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I call Hollywood a cult.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
I called it that in my book Brave, and it
compares the kind of the sect, the group that I
grew up in behind walls, to the cult of Hollywood
and how how cults work in general. It was not
about sexual harassment or assault or anything like that. It
was It's an idea book and bravery and the bravery
(09:59):
it takes to live of under under a lie that's
manufactured about you. And that's something that I know, Shannon deeply,
deeply understood I. However, at the time I joined charm
did not understand kind.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Of the backstory.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I was just told she was fired and nobody talked
about her, which is what happens in cults.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
They memory hold you.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
That's a term for just kind of blanking people's memory,
and they don't mention the person they're kind of they kind.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of ceased to exist.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
And I was just trying to keep my head above
water at that point. I was very famous at that point,
but I was persona non grata, non hirable. But I
was famous and caused disruptions everywhere I went. And I know, again,
this is kind of something that Shannon we later talked
about that she related to, you know, the weight of
(10:58):
what it's like to be to have the media machine
lie about you. She was vulnerable on that show. She
was vulnerable knowing what I know now, you know, knowing
that she had left nine oh two and zero in
kind of a cataclysmic way, and then when she joined Charmed,
(11:18):
I didn't really understand her passion for I didn't know
anything really about the show at all. So for me,
it was just perceived by the public as a very
strange move. Why would someone in movies, why would they
go do a TV show? And I couldn't explain, Well,
I'm famous and I can't get any other job, and
it looks interesting, and you know how it happened for me.
(11:40):
And I've told this story, you know, on stage with Shannon.
What a gift to be able to spend that last
year and a half with her, really really amazing gift.
But the story I told is I was in Romania
doing a movie and I get a call and it's
a producer named Aaron Spelling, and I hang up because
I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I was like, why would Aaron Spelling be calling Romania? Haha?
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Click, And I had this little voice like Rose McGowan,
would you like to join, you know, the cast of
Charmed on a show? And I was like, I didn't
really know what he was talking about, but I was
open to meeting him. So I am on a plane
home to Los Angeles. I'm like, okay, Universe, give me
a sign if I meant to be doing this. And
the weirdest thing is from never before and never since
(12:28):
have I ever seen Charmed on any airplane offered as
the entertainment on a flight and I was going from
a Romania to Los Angeles, and the pilot episode of
Charmed was the entertainment offering so strange, and it looked
cool and moody and dark and unique, and the acting
(12:50):
was really strong, And I said, yes, I didn't really
understand what it would entail.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I mean, I'd still be here talking about it all
these years later, that there'd be legions of legacy fans
and new fans, and how interwoven we would be in
people's lives. And I think Shannon definitely did understand all
of that. She definitely understood the power of the medium
of television in a way that I had not. And
(13:20):
when I got there, it was just strange. And I
was told over and over and over, no show survives
a major cast change. You only have like two hundred
and something jobs on the line, and far more behind
the scenes of people you can't see in administration. But
no worries if everybody loses their jobs because you joining
(13:42):
it's going to tank the show.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Don't worry. It's not your fault.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
And that was said to me that I was going
to fail over and over, and so I just kind
of refused to fail. And I also knew that I
was in a very vulnerable position. The thing in Hollywood
is if you got fired as a woman from a job,
you didn't get a second chance. So it was already,
you know, a miracle that Shannon was there in the
(14:06):
first place, and I think that's certainly what made her
vulnerable to kind of the operation behind the scenes that
took her out to be blunt. That's what made her
vulnerable to that, and that person knew it and that
group knew it, and that was that was she was
preyed upon in that way. And I don't think there's
anything wrong with someone wanting things to be better, and
(14:29):
that's kind of you know, they made it sound like
she was difficult. Shannon was good. She was really good.
She was a damn fine actress and director. She really
cared about what she was putting out there, as did I.
But I was in a different way joining I knew
I had no pull, and it was just very weird
(14:51):
on the set kind of from from the get go.
It was just very different universe from movies where it
might turn out badly, but everybody's all in it. There's
there's artists, there were artists there, you know, there was
and for me, I felt the business around the show,
the business people. It felt kind of like I could
(15:12):
be working at a pencil factory in Ohio churning out
things at a high volume, which was just kind of
a shock to my system. And at the time, granted,
they'd been on the air for quite a few years
when I joined, so it was a pretty well oiled machine.
They knew what they were doing. And yeah, I mean,
I imagine now with hindsight, it was so strange for everybody involved,
(15:34):
everybody there, not just me and not just Shannon, And
looking back at it, you know, from the get go,
every question was like, do you think Shannon Doherty hates you?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Do you think she's jealous of you? Do you think?
Do you think? Do you think? Do you think? What
do you think? And I refused to take the bait.
I did not.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
They wanted me kind of to continue or start a
war with her, and I just was like, absolutely not,
I will absolutely not do this. And to her credit,
she absolutely did not do that either. And that's been
something that's.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
A real world.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
Class character about her, you know. And the thing is
both of us have been I just put this exactly,
but I would say they use the term parasited.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's not a word. But when a.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Parasite attached to the host body, they steal their creativity,
they steal their work, they steal their joy, they steal
their nutrients, their food, their their food supply. And that's
what a parasite does to a human body. And sometimes
I think there are parasites in human skin, and they
wear human skin.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
And you know, we both.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
In this life and on that show and around it,
and since.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Had a parasite attached to.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Us, I didn't understand a lot of what happened with
her in a way that I kind of wanted to
not know, because that way I couldn't I would not
be lying in any interviews and I wouldn't have to
(17:18):
have any feeling about it. But looking back, I mean,
putting myself in her shoes, how devastating, how devastating, and
how dare someone say? You know, if I, honestly, if
I hear a parasite say hurt people, hurt people as
an excuse for their crap behavior one more time, I
will actually scream and light the world on fire. I
(17:39):
think on Shannon's behalf and maybe my own two and
quite a few people who've experienced this. You know, there's
a narcissistic quality to parasites. They want what they want,
they take what they take, and they feel that they're
owed that, and they know that they're not the real talents,
that they are not the true ones, but they can
feed off other talent. And and I know that that
(18:00):
that's that's what was done to her and later on
done to me. And I think it is one hundred
percent valid knowing you have a ticking clock. We all
have ticking clocks, but Shannon really knew she had a
ticking clock on her to to want to talk about
this and to set the record straight for herself, because
it gets exhausting being lied about, and when you're led
(18:21):
about on that scale, as I have personally experienced. You know,
in my case, a very very evil, evil predator that
a lot of people seem to be okay with, I
just was not okay with this. Bought a medium machine,
bought journalists off all over the world.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This is fact.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
This has been put in a journalist ron in Pharaoh's
book and the New York Times book. Bought journalists contracts
and said, you know, go after this person if you
ever see them, I'll buy your I'll buy your story
and turn it into a movie, and in trade, you
need to character assassinate this person. So I'm just saying
I've I had for me. It was twenty something, two
(19:03):
and a half decades of stalking at the highest level
and ruining my good name to a point where I
couldn't fight. And Shannon knew that too. But what we
both did and what I admired the hell out about her,
she just kept working and both of us were put
in things that we wouldn't have been doing had this
not happened to us, we wouldn't have been in a
(19:30):
different playing field, so to speak. But at the same time,
this did not lessen our intention and honoring of the
work that was in front of us that we could
and were able to do. But it's very hard, and
what people don't understand is that it's not you know,
people talk about the show Charmed and Shannon leaving and
firing and like as if it was it it just
(19:51):
affected her career.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's not the case.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
When someone lies about you and they have a machine
behind them, a powerful machine affects how people in a
store where you're going to buy something, treat you. It
affects certainly how the media treats you. It affects how
people online treat you. It affects future relationships you meet someone,
how any stranger perceives you, because they have all this
(20:16):
like arsenal of kind of lies that they're taught to
believe and not question. And why would they because this
is the dominant narrative, and it's extremely hard to get
out from under the dominant narrative. And I am so
proud that our girl did that. She did that, She
did that in the end and on her terms, and
(20:38):
by doing it, she helps so many people, which is
something that for me, I, you know, I sometimes get
asked like, you know, why are you like how you are?
And I'm sure she was asked that too. The bravery
it took for her to share her health journey in
(20:59):
a town where it's all about the look and nobody
can ever see you weak, The bravery it took for
her to be real and raw. For her, it was
actually not that much, because that's.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Who she is. For other people, it would have taken.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
That. GE's inconceivable that they would share those moments, these
moments of deep vulnerability, these moments of weakness, and the
fact that she knew she could help others and herself
by having a community around her all the hats off
and anybody suffering that I know she would want you
to go on and keep fighting because she fought.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
She fought.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
It was amazing. Sorry that brings tears to my eyes.
Moment for shoving it down. And what I'd love about
this last year and a half, almost two years now,
it was such a gift. She never complained. She complained
(22:03):
about like stuff that, you know, why is the microphone
not sounding right? Like professional stuff, like pro stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
She's a pro. She was a deep pro. We're both pros.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
But she's a pro pro and like things to run
like a pro likes things to run. And But in
terms of her physical pain, her, if she had limitations,
if she was tired, she just kept going. And all
she would say is sometimes, you know, if too many
people tried to hug her at once, she was like,
(22:36):
you know, it's better for me not to. But she
almost always gave in and would hug anyway, even though
she was immuno compromised, which was.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
What a hero, What a heroine she was was I
hate that word.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Sorry, I'm gathering my It's hard when uh, a public
warrior leaves because there's not that many. There's not that
many that inspire me, inspire others because there's so many
(23:18):
polished people, and I think what the world needs now,
you know, more than ever are heroes, real ones, people
you can really believe in, you know, and they're not
gonna sell you out, They're not gonna lie, and they're
gonna be transparent. And when I was so happy when
I found out she was gonna come on this kind
of reunion tour that we did.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
It was so badass.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I loved sitting next to her on stage and like
all of you out there listening, you've.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Heard her laugh. God, what're a world class laugh?
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right? She was fun and something I didn't know about Shannon.
I mean I did know, but like watching her, like
how many close friends she had and how she had
love of her family around her. That's something I don't
(24:16):
have as much and didn't have, and it forms you differently,
and it's really inspiring and beautiful to know that, you know,
if you do the work to heal the trauma with it,
you don't have to be frightened of people that you
can reach out a hand across troubled waters and join
hands and join forces, as we did. And we had
(24:37):
every reason. We were pitted against each other for so
many years. She had every reason not to like me,
not like personally, but just as in somebody that's attached
to a traumatic period of your life. It's very hard.
That's hard, and God, she had grace with that. She
really did. It's like incredible, And my relationship for there
(25:03):
was funny. She had a tough venire at first, you know,
and we chipped away at it. And I was not
in the best physical shape when I started, not like
anything like she has, but something different that's manageable, and
(25:26):
it was not in great shape when I started to
tour with her, and as I started to get healthier,
her started to decline.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And so I feel like there's a reason that.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
We were put together in that last year and a
half of her life. What a life she lived, she
really she lived so many lives in one life, and
that I certainly relate to. I know a lot of
us can, but she lived life on a grand.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Scale with gusto and just badass fun.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
One of the things we learned, I think from each
other by being outspoken was actually how much more similar.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
We were than different.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And about a month before she died, we got to
be together, just alone, just me and her, for the
first time ever and for the first time in twenty
five years, and it was so cool and we just
we actually didn't want the night to end. And it
was both wholesome and that word is so dorky, but
(26:34):
here we are.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
It was. It was sweet.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
She told me stuff that I had never known, and
I told her stuff that she didn't know, and she
had some questions for me and I answered them and
vice versa. And then she told me she was going
for some experimental treatment, and we talked about me doing
(27:00):
the podcast with her, and I was like, I'll wait
a little while longer. And I had a feeling when
she said about the treatment.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I just had this.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
That this was not really going to go well. And
she looked frightened for the first time, frightened, and I
gave her a big hug and I told her I
loved her. I do regret not doing the podcast with her,
But at the same time, I think because so much
(27:39):
of our relationship had played out publicly that to have
that period of time just for us was really special.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
To get to be on stage with her and Holly
and witness their legendary friendship was really special.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
There's so much.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
About her that it's like it kind of had like
she had that kind of stardust on her.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
And if I have any regrets, I wish I could
have gotten an hour sooner. I don't know how that
would have happened, but I wish we could have. Yeah,
you know, we both despised corporate feminism as they call it,
like slogans and fake fake activists and people that are
just do it for the clicks and the glory but
(28:40):
without putting in actually the work and the trauma that
it takes to do that work. That word is a
bit overused, but sometimes it's actually really what it is,
and it is and it takes a lot, you know.
So if I have regrets professionally transparently, I regret ever
(29:03):
being an actor. Yeah, I think that was the wrong
drop for me. I was quite good at it, but
like Shannon, I love directing more. And the last thing
I did in Hollywood was direct a movie and it
was nominated for Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, which was
very very proud of because only filmmakers can vote for that.
(29:23):
It's not a popularity contest. But behind the scenes it
got dismantled by my longtime stalker and his posse, and
that's when I knew that it would never ever stop.
It was never going to stop. And that's what I
said about for about four years, probably starting around twenty fourteen,
(29:45):
talking to journalists, following journalists all over the world on
Twitter as it was then called, and and writing things
in a way that they would kind of go viral
about every three weeks. I kind of tricked them and
I hashtag something called Rose Army based on the Trojan
Horse myth and the Spartans. But I didn't have a
(30:10):
big fake horse. I just had me in a hashtag
and made it sound like there are millions and millions
of us, and now there are millions and millions of us.
But then it was just me, and I kind of
was so unusual in the things I was saying for
an industry that likes only kind of the shiny false
(30:31):
narrative that I was shocking people. And again I saw
seen so many people like say, I'm a feminist. I
don't even consider myself that I don't any kind of
psychological operation that's run on the public with a narrative
or a name. I don't consider myself a part of
(30:51):
always been an outsider, and Shannon, you know, was always
an outsider too, in a different way. But she loved Hollywood,
she loved in a lot of ways, the machine of it.
I did not. I was not raised there in that way.
I was raised by artists, truth tellers, scientists, very different minds,
(31:12):
and it formed me differently the way I was formed.
And for me, the things that I'm most passionate about
are letting people know that they are better than what
they've been told, that they're braver than what they know,
and in these especially scary times, that it's really important
(31:34):
for all of us to stitch together the little joys.
I live in Mexico, and my favorite word in Spanish
is allegria and that means joy. So I see it
like kind of just stitching together these joys, right, little things,
little things birds in the trees, that beautiful rose no
pun intended, growing through the crack in the sidewalk. And
(31:57):
you know, I regret that I had to do things
that were so stressful that it gave them the ammunition
to portray me a certain.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Way, like the angry blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I was angry literally at the interviewer because I realized,
oh my god, there's a.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Whole operation being run on me.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
I was in the middle of my interview, an interview
for my book, when they said you're the face of
me too, and I didn't know. I said, what is that?
And then now they're joined forever. My thing was just
like power abusers, back up, We the people have a voice,
We matter, we count all of us. And Shannon did
(32:39):
that in a different way. For people struggling with a disease,
this crippling, brutal disease that's caused by so many factors
in our environment, caused by traumatic stress that's in our lives.
I mean that eats away at us. And you know,
I do think her getting to speak her truth most
(33:02):
likely helped her live longer because it relieves that stress.
And I hate that she had relationship stress towards the
end of her life. But we also laughed about how
neither of us were particularly very good at that sort
of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Either.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
It's hard being the breadwinner and being very independent and
strong and then being in a relationship, they don't kind
of always match, and I wish that she had more time,
as we talked about, to learn how to do it right,
and I wish that too. I think we were talking
(33:39):
about misconceptions, Shannon and I, and that the biggest misconception
about her is that she was hard, but that at
the same time it was the truth, but it's not
who she natively was. And I would say that's the
greatest misconception about me as well. We both just like
to laugh and soft underneath it all. She was really
(34:05):
good at being a star, better than me.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I was always kind of not great at that. I
was very impressed with her ability to be a star.
It was really cool to witness, and I had respect
for that. And I think people would be surprised to learn.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Probably that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I was always very shy, very very shy, not a
natural born extrovert, and not somebody that ever wanted to
talk about dark things or put that on people and
have them look at their own darkness in their lives
and see where they could bring light to it. But
(34:52):
I am proud of that, and I am proud of collectively.
My goal was to see if I could make a
ten percent difference in the world, that people could think
differ differently, that they could look at each other differently,
that they could treat each other differently, that the dominant
narrative of this is how is always going to be worldwide.
I was like, why, I think I just see humans
as better and I know we can be better together
(35:14):
and not divided. And that was my own personal little goal.
I slapped a hashtag on it, but that was not
it for me. It was just about being better than
you had to be because I'd been told for a
long long time that I was, you know, not worth much,
that I was worthless, blah blah blah, the boring stuff
you know that gets said, the abusive stuff from home
(35:36):
and then out in the world. And I disagreed. I disagreed,
and I still do. You know, I think we grow,
we've become different than who we are who I was
in the late nineties. It's different than who I was
in the mid two thousands. You know, when I did
Charmed for so long, I really I was looking at
(35:58):
some fashion the other day and I got really confused.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
I was like, why did I look a certain way?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
And then after the show, like I think playing page
for so long, and I love that character. But I
had always kind of done more kind of artistic, strange
kind of jobs, not mainstream, and I was not.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
My whole life was not like hanging out kind of
with mainstream people. It was always kind of fringe artists, weirdos,
unique writers, and there's kind of those who thought differently,
looked differently. Certainly my first boyfriend, I was like thirteen,
and this would be in the eight late eighties, Like
he had a long skirt and like.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah so and makeup.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I just always like creative, strange looking, unique people. And
when I saw myself after Charmed, when I came out
of Charmed, all of a sudden, it was everybody had
to have a stylist and in Hollywood, and they had
to have a makeup artist. That was it was totally
(37:00):
different than when I started the show. And I hadn't
really done a lot of press during that show, just
only for the show, not like red carpets or things
like that. So by the time I finished, all of
a sudden, you had to have a stylist. So all
of a sudden, I'm being dressed like someone I'm not
by someone who I'm paying to make me look like
someone I'm not, not my taste, but I'd been un
(37:20):
charmed for so long, I'd actually forgotten who I was.
I had forgotten my own taste. And I regret that period.
I regret letting makeup artists put so much makeup on
me that I just looked like a kind of a
drag version of myself. And I regret. I regret being
lost for so long from myself. That's the one thing
(37:42):
with Shannon is I don't think she was ever lost
from herself.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
Illness you lose.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Parts of yourself absolutely, And a few years ago I
went through something really horrific. I lost an extreme amount
of weight and a lot of physical suffering, an intense
amount of physical suffering, and I'm really proud to be
making it to the other side. And she was a
big part of that. She was a big part of that,
(38:12):
and inspiring and inspiring to me that she never lost
sight of who she was, She never let relationships in
her life go because of injury to her psyche or trauma.
She was just badass that way, and I honestly, I
think we could all do with a bit more of
(38:34):
that kind of loving badassery.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I don't think that's the word, but let's make it out.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
I think the thing that Shannon and I were most
surprised about each other was just each other. Was that
away from everybody else, that we could be our soft selves.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
What a gift.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
I tried to participate in the episode right after she died,
and let's be clear where people were sending I think
voice memos and videos talking about her, and I tried
four different times, and I would have panic attacks each time.
I've never been good about shoving down emotionally, I feel
(39:20):
something cursed, curse, curse, I've never been good at that.
I definitely wear my heart on my sleeve. I couldn't
do it.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
I couldn't.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I was not ready to to say was. So I
want to end this on a happy note, not crying.
But I know how many people miss her, and I
know how many are suffering. It's pretty amazing to have
(39:59):
been so loved in this life, and you know what,
she earned it and deserved it. So hats off to you,
Shannan Doherty, my friend, and that wherever you are, because
I feel you all around. I think you're definitely with
(40:23):
your mama, Rosa and all those you loved and your
beautiful dog, Bowie, and I know how much you loved
your fans. I don't like the word fans, but that's
the word we have to offer the people in your life,
those who didn't know your friends, that you had yet
to meet physically.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And seeing how many.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
People loved you at these cons that these conventions was
just so so awesome, so rad so cool.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
For me, I.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Am focusing.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
On getting better.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
You know, it takes a lot out of you when
you've been you know, kind of crucified by some parasites.
And I gave you know, I did my best. It
was David versus Goliath. I did my absolute best, and
I went to the mat for the people. Shannon laughed.
(41:19):
She's like, you're the only one and the whole thing
that didn't profit. And I'm like, yeah, I know, it
wasn't my goal. It would be nice, but it's not
my goal. And I'm getting back to.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Art.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
I'm getting back to being the artist that I always
was and unique in different ways, and you know, getting
life from meeting people out on the road. And yeah,
I've got quite a few things up my sleeve. It'll
be cool. And I know that whenever they come out
that I'll be asking for her advice and her assistance
(41:56):
in guiding, and I asked for that now. So one
of the things that was very beautiful about Shannon was
her belief, her religious belief and it's not cool to
talk about, but I think it is actually and we
shared that, and so saying a prayer for her now,
(42:19):
lighting a candle for her always this is let's be clear.
And it's been an honor and privileged Shando, to speak
with you, for you, about you. Take care,
Host
Shannen Doherty
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