US actress Shannen Doherty (52) has been battling cancer for almost ten years. She’s been talking about this openly since November in her new podcast “Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty.” In the current episode she describes how her desire to become a mother influenced the course of her cancer treatment. She underwent artificial insemination several times to give herself and her husband Kurt Iswarienko a child.
Doherty was in a relationship with Iswarienko for 14 years and the two were married for twelve years. In April 2023, the actress filed for divorce from her third husband after finding out he was cheating on her with another woman. During her marriage, she had a strong desire to become pregnant, she tells her friend and oncologist Dr. in the podcast. Lawrence Piro.
“I didn’t just want a child for myself, but also for my husband. I wanted it for our marriage, I wanted that part to be fulfilled for him too,” said Doherty in the podcast conversation. “I met my husband late in life and as you know, a lot of things happened. When it came time to make a decision, we decided on artificial insemination. I did a few rounds of it.”
Shannen Doherty has been battling breast cancer since 2015, which has since led to metastases. In 2017, she announced that she had the disease under control. Unfortunately, in 2020 she had to announce that she had cancer again – already in an advanced and incurable stage.
The 52-year-old now explained in the podcast that she believed in 2017 that artificial insemination had contributed to her cancer: “Many other women I knew who had undergone artificial insemination also ended up getting breast cancer.” Their thoughts were that the “hormones that are pumped through the body through artificial insemination only increase the risk.”
When she received the all-clear after chemo that no tumor residue could be detected, she no longer wanted to undergo artificial insemination. She had already gone through menopause and so there was no longer any reason for pregnancy. However, because of her beliefs against artificial insemination in connection with cancer, she also refused therapy with tamoxifen, a common treatment for breast cancer that affects the hormone estrogen in the body. She didn’t make an “uninformed decision” back then. “My decision at the time was based on the facts that I knew and that I had investigated.”
In June 2023, Doherty told the public that metastases had formed in her brain, and in November 2023 she announced in a “People” interview that the cancer had also attacked her bones.
