Shannen Doherty Says She Got Brain Surgery After Finding Out Husband Was Cheating

Shannen Doherty made quite a revelation about why her 11-year marriage to husband Kurt Iswarienko ended.

On Wednesday, the “Beverly Hills, 90210” alum debuted her new podcast, “Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty,” in which she shared a heartbreaking story about realizing her relationship was “essentially over.”

The former “Charmed” star prefaced her story about 35 minutes into the episode by saying that in January 2023, she found out that her stage 4 breast cancer had spread to her brain. She said that doctors wanted to perform brain surgery to remove a tumor so they could study it and decide “what was happening and then what would be the proper protocol in treatment.”

Doherty said she was “petrified” to get the surgery and thought she would likely die, or lose some function like her ability to speak or walk, as a result.

“I went into that surgery early in the morning and I went in after I found out that my marriage was essentially over, that my husband had been carrying on an affair for two years,” she said. “To not go in that surgery, even though, being very clear, he wanted to go, I couldn’t go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed.”

“At the end of the day, I just felt so incredibly unloved by someone I was with for 14 years, by someone I loved with all my heart,” Doherty continued, adding that she was supported through the operation by her mom, brother and best friends.

Doherty has had a long and public battle with cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. She announced that she was in remission in 2017, but in 2020, she revealed to ABC News that the disease had returned. In June 2023, Doherty said that a scan earlier in the year showed that the cancer had metastasized to her brain. In November 2023, she made the sad revelation to People that the cancer had spread to her bones.

Although Doherty’s brain surgery earlier this year was successful, it still meant that Doherty had to do brain radiation, a new treatment she says is akin to chemotherapy and caused her to lose her hair “all over again.”

“Just to have to go through all of that while trying to figure out if you’re going to get a fucking divorce and trying to get to the truth of that,” she said.

In April, Doherty’s publicist announced that she had filed for divorce from Iswarienko. He was her third husband. Doherty was previously married to Ashley Hamilton from 1993 to 1994, and Rick Salomon from 2002 to 2003.

Doherty went on to share on her podcast that she became “obsessed” with finding out the truth about her ex’s infidelity “through conversations, expecting someone to be honest with me.”

“If you share 14 years together and you cheated, doesn’t that person deserve the absolute truth regardless of how much that hurts them?” she said, adding that she “also spoke to the girlfriend of two years that he cheated on me with.”

To hear more details about the dissolution of Doherty’s marriage, head over to the “Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty” podcast.