Alyssa Milano reacts to the death of Charmed co-star Shannen Doherty

Alyssa Milan honors Shannen Doherty.

“It’s no secret that Shannen and I had a complicated relationship, but at the core, it was someone I deeply respected and was in awe of,” Milano, 51, said in a statement to We weekly on Sunday, July 14. “She was a talented actress, loved by many and the world is less without her. My condolences to all who loved her.”

Us confirmed on Sunday that Doherty had died after a long battle with cancer. She was 53 years old.

“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after battling the disease for many years,” said Doherty’s spokeswoman Leslie Sloane said in a statement to Us“The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones and her dog, Bowie. The family requests privacy so she can grieve in peace.”

Related: The Behind-the-Scenes Drama of Charmed Through the Years: A Timeline

The power of three will free us… from everything except drama. Charmed, which premiered on The WB in 1998, made headlines from the start when Aaron Spelling cast Shannen Doherty to play one of the three Halliwell sisters, four years after she was infamously fired from Spelling Television’s Beverly Hills, 90210. “(Aaron) (…)

Doherty and Milano played the Halliwell sisters Prue and Phoebe alongside Holly Marie Combs (who played Piper) in CharmedThe series started in 1998 and ended with the eighth season in 2006. Doherty left the show after season 3.

The trio made headlines earlier this year with their renewed feud. Doherty and Combs, 50, claimed on Doherty’s podcast “Let’s Be Clear” in December 2023 that Milano was behind Doherty’s firing.

“We didn’t want to fire Shannen, but we were backed into this corner,” producer Combs recalled. Jonathan Levin he told her at the time. “‘We’re basically in a situation where it’s either one or the other. We’ve been told (by Alyssa) it’s her or (Shannen), and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile work environment.'”

Milano addressed the allegations during a panel at Megacon in February. “I’ll just say that I’m sad. I don’t think I’m really sad for myself or for my life or how it may or may not affect my life. I’m saddest for the fans,” she told the audience. “I’m saddest that a show that meant so much to so many people was marred by a toxicity that still lingers today, almost a quarter century later.”

Related: Shannen Doherty’s battle against cancer in her own words

For Shannen Doherty, it was important to be “as honest as possible” about her battle with cancer. The actress first battled breast cancer between March 2015 and April 2017 and announced in February 2020 that the disease had returned. “In a few days or a week, it will come out that – (…)

Milano added that she is upset that others “can’t move on” from the drama. “When I think back to that time, it was hard for me, and I’ve worked very hard over the last 25 years in my life to heal all of my trauma,” she said. “And that’s not just all of the trauma I experienced while filming, but all of my trauma. I’ve worked really hard to heal the pieces because I understand that hurt people hurt others, and my intention is to be a healed person who helps heal people.”

Milano issued a separate statement on social media stressing that she “does not have the power” to have Doherty fired.

“I don’t know of any other show that was as successful as Charmed where the cast still speaks ill of the experience a quarter century later. That was 15 movies and 13 TV shows ago for me,” Milano wrote on Instagram in February. “That was 11 years before my 15-year marriage and 13 years before my first child was born. That was so long ago that any retelling of those stories by anyone is just history revisionism.”

Doherty addressed Milano’s response in a separate MegaCon panel on Charmed.

“At this point in my life, with my health diagnosis – excuse me if I start crying now – and battling a terrible disease every day of my life, it is also incredibly important to me that the truth is actually told, as opposed to the narrative that others are serving up for me,” Doherty said. “In the truth that I know we have been told, there is no revision of history. There is no throwing of bushes or shoes. There are no delays. There is no intermediary for months.”

Doherty continued, “I remember the events as if I were still living them. And what I will say is that what someone else would call ‘drama’ is, for me, a real trauma that I have been living through for a very long time. And it was only through my battle with cancer that I decided to address that trauma and talk about it openly and honestly so that I can actually heal from having my livelihood taken away from me, having my family’s livelihood taken away from me because someone else wanted to be number 1 on the call list. That is the truth.”