Shannen Doherty is planning her own funeral and curating the guest list. The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum got candid on the latest episode of her podcast in a “morbid” but “fun” conversation with her best friend and executer of her will, Chris Cortazzo.
“I’m horrible at funerals,” Doherty admits on Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty. “I don’t know if anybody is actually good at funerals, but I am the girl who like, literally sobs. I can’t handle it.”
With that mentality, Doherty says she wants her own memorial service to less of a somber service and more of a raucous house party. But when it comes to the invitees, less is more.
“There’s a lot of people that I think would show up that I don’t want there,” she says. “I don’t want them there because their reasons for showing up aren’t necessarily the best reasons, like, they don’t really like me and, you know, they have their reasons and good for them, but they don’t actually really like me enough to show up to my funeral.”
She continues, “But they will, because it’s the politically correct thing to do and they don’t want to look bad, so I kinda want to take the pressure off them and I want my funeral to be like a love fest. I don’t want people to be crying or people to privately be like, ‘Thank God that b***h is dead now.'”
Cortazzo, a Compass affiliated real estate agent, replies by asking for a list of who should be invited the festivities.
“That’s the shorter, that’s the better list,” Doherty cracks. “I can’t give you a list of who I don’t want because that’s way too long.”
Later, the pals circle back with Doherty offering more details about why certain people won’t make the cut — but stops short of directly naming names.
“I’m talking about people that just really don’t like me,” she says. “I just don’t want those people there and I know who they are.”
She adds, “I abhor fakeness. I can’t stand people who want to all of the sudden pretend that they found Jesus and they’re so sorry and they repent and they didn’t mean anything bad that they said about you, blah, blah, blah. I can’t stand that. I’m like, ‘No, no, no. I know you’re still the exact same petty human being. Don’t. Just stay away from me. We’re good. I don’t need to say something bad about you, you don’t need to say something bad about me, but we can just ignore each other.'”
Doherty’s funeral talk comes amid the 52-year-old star’s ongoing stage 4 cancer battle. Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and went into remission two years later after undergoing chemotherapy.
In 2020, it was revealed that Doherty’s breast cancer had returned and was at stage four. Then, over the course of 2023, Doherty said that the cancer had spread to her brain and to her bones.
On this week’s podcast, Doherty and Cortazzo also address plans for the actress’ eventual ashes. Doherty grants her permission to have a portion of them made into a piece of jewelry for Cortazzo to wear while revealing her own wishes.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she says of her final resting place, confirming that she would like to be cremated and not buried. “I want to be mixed with my dog, and I want to be mixed with my dad.”
Doherty’s father, John Thomas Doherty Jr., died in 2010. She said it was during his funeral that she first started thinking about her own.
“I was pleasantly surprised at my dad’s of who showed up,” she says. “But it made me start thinking about who would show up to mine.”
Doherty continues to address her health on her weekly podcast, and recently told ET how she hopes to make a difference by sharing her story.
“I just hope that any industry — whether it be the entertainment industry, whether it be banks, whether it be where people are getting jobs — not look at people with stage 4 cancer, with which whatever kind of cancer it is, and count them out and say, ‘Well, they’re gonna get too tired,’ or ‘They’re not gonna remember this,’ or ‘They’re gonna make mistakes,'” Doherty told ET of the goals for her podcast.
“I hope that they realize that people with cancer, really with any terminal disease, there’s a level of appreciation for every second of every day of your life that you pay attention to detail even more,” she continued. “I hope that they realize that… people that are sick like I am need to work desperately, because it’s what helps us keep going forward.”
