Shannen Doherty and Luke Perry had a “special kind of love” as friends

Shannen Doherty and Luke Perry were more than just co-stars – they were friends for decades.

The two played the main roles in the 90s television drama Beverly Hills, 90210 Brenda and Dylan acted as lovers, and they remained close until Perry’s death at the age of 52 in March 2019 following a stroke.

Doherty died on Saturday, July 13. Her longtime publicist Leslie Sloane confirmed the death in a statement to PEOPLE the next day, noting that Doherty “lost her battle with cancer after battling the disease for many years.”

Several fans and relatives of Doherty spoke about the closeness between Doherty and Perry after her death. Gabrielle Carteris, 63, who played Andrea in the series, wrote in her obituary: “I know Luke is there with open arms to love you.”

When Doherty appeared on a panel at MegaCon Orlando in February, she became visibly emotional as she recalled learning of Perry’s death.

“It was shocking,” said the Charmed Actress. “I get very emotional when someone mentions Luke because as a cancer patient – and a really bad stage four cancer – I thought I would be the first to go. When it was Luke, it really threw me off track.”

In a 2019 interview with PEOPLE, Doherty called Perry a “smart, quiet, humble and complex man with a heart of gold and a never-ending well of integrity and love.” She said they reconnected during her cancer battle and “simultaneously found themselves back together, albeit older and wiser, but that connection remained intact.”

Before Perry’s death, the two had hoped to work together again and create “something special and meaningful” for fans.

“There is a special kind of love that you feel for each other when you experience the journey we have made on 90210 and of course life in general,” said Doherty. “Luke and I were working on show ideas for ourselves. We wanted to work together again and create something special and meaningful for our fans at this time in our lives.”

“I will miss him every day. Every minute. Every second.”

In the same interview, she also revealed that they “met for lunch” a few weeks before his death.

“I walked in and there he was, smiling, with his dog Penny and their bed under the booth, as happy as could be,” she recalled. “I’ll never forget – and miss – Luke looking at me with that smile and saying… Shan.”

Perry, meanwhile, spoke about Doherty at a 90210 panel at RewindCon Chicago in 2019, where he said, “None of us are up here today without Shannen.”

“In fact, she was instrumental in the success of the program,” he told the congress participants.

“She taught me a lot and I’m really glad she was there for me as a scene partner,” he continued. “Any problems or anything that anyone ever talked about Shannen, I could always tell them that if she was just right and we were doing our job, there were no problems. She was great at what she did.”

After Perry’s death, Doherty made a cameo appearance on his show Riverdale and shared on Instagram that she was “deeply honored to pay tribute to Luke on the CW hit series.”

“The care with which this show honors his memory is beautiful,” she wrote in the caption, while posting two photos of herself with the actor. “He will be missed. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.”

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Doherty, whose character was written off 90210 in 1994 after rumors of disruptions and interruptions on the set, said in the episode of her podcast on March 11 So that we understand each other that she was “horrified” by the “love triangle” between her and Perry’s character and Jennie Garth’s Kelly.

“I wasn’t excited about it at all because I just thought Brenda and Dylan were the best thing ever and I didn’t understand why anyone would want to mess up that storyline,” she said of her on-screen relationship with Perry.