Beloved ’90s icon Shannen Doherty has not held back on her disdain for her former Charmed co-star Alyssa Milano.
In a bombshell podcast interview, the actress sheds light on one of TV’s most notorious feuds, which saw Shannen, Alyssa and their onscreen sister Holly Marie Combs embroiled in rumours of toxic behaviour on the set of the sexy supernatural series, before the Beverly Hills, 90210 star’s shock exit in 2001.
Despite Shannen, 52, having a close friendship with Holly, 50, before Charmed started, the ailing actress – who is battling terminal breast cancer – has revealed that Alyssa tried to put a wedge between them… and it worked!
“It was really interesting of her trying to pull you away from me,” she mused to Holly as the pair reunited for Shannen’s podcast.
The actress went on to note that Holly had even lived with her at the height of her fame, after her split from her first husband Bryan Smith. But while the trio were filming the second season, Holly faced a traumatic health scare and had to have a potentially cancerous tumour removed.
It was far from a Charmed life for the co-stars on set.
Shannen now claims Alyssa, 50, and her mother Lin actively tried to stop her from visiting Holly in hospital.
“Hospitals scared me to death,” says Shannen, who had practically been living at a hospital at the time due to her father’s poor health. “I waited 24 hours after your surgery to go and then it wasn’t easy for me to get in. I was being told I couldn’t even get in.
“Alyssa and her mum were blocking people from seeing you, but you didn’t know at the time. I remember you texted me, ‘Dude, are you going to come and see me?'”
Shannen explains that she grew frustrated over Holly’s messages and felt guilt, given her friend assumed she had been abandoned.
“I also felt my anger at the situation of not being allowed to come see you and how a family had swooped in. It caused a weird divide between the two of us that continued throughout season two. I think I cried every single night.”
In 2001, at the end of the third season of Charmed, Shannen ultimately walked out on the show – but not without twisting the knife into Alyssa.
“There was too much drama on the set and not enough passion for the work,” she sneered back then. “I’m 30 years old and I don’t have time for drama in my life any more… I’ll miss Holly a lot and that’s really the only thing I want to clear up.”
Shannen says Holly (left) was bewitched by Alyssa (far right).
Sadly for Shannen, the tension on Charmed seemed like a toxic byproduct of her work on 90210 just years earlier.
She describes her relationship with Alyssa as “competitive” and similar to what she experienced on the famous soap. “It was happening again – the competitiveness kicking in,” she explains.
Shannen went on to reveal that her 90210 co-stars, including Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling, became cruel towards her when she was offered a prestigious Rolling Stone magazine cover.
The actress has also admitted she refused to read Alyssa’s 2021 autobiography, in which she attempted to clear the air between them.
“Obviously I’m never going to read her book because it’s titled Sorry Not Sorry, so right there it tells me you’re not freaking sorry,” says Shannen. “Why mention something in that case?”
Meanwhile, Alyssa’s mother Lin, 75, isn’t taking Shannen’s claims lying down. She categorically denies the star’s version of events and has questioned whether it’s even possible to block someone from visiting a hospital room.
She also denies meddling with her daughter’s friendships, given she was never on set and focusing on her own business.
