"Betrayed": Shannen Doherty opens up on tough divorce amid cancer battle
Shannen Doherty revealed it all on the debut episode of her new podcast Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty.
The actress opened up on her tough split from her husband of 14 years, Kurt Iswarienko, after she found out he had been having an affair for two years, while she was battling brain cancer.
She recalled the moment she found out, right before her surgery to remove the tumour in January.
“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 had her family and friends by her side.
Though the Charmed actress is currently focusing on her health and the future, she did admit that the entire experience has been overwhelming.
“Just to have to go through all of that while trying to figure out if you’re going to get a frickin’ divorce and trying to get to the truth of that,” she said.
She added that she was "obsessed" with finding out the truth of the affair, “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? If they’re the ones asking for it, if they’re the ones saying, ‘Listen, I get it, I may cry, I may get angry, and this may really suck to hear, but I need to hear it because I need closure and this is how I get my closure.’ So I had a lot of months of trying to figure out what I was going to do,” she explained.
She added that the reason why she was trying so hard to make sense of the situation was because she herself does not condone cheating, “If you cheat on me, you’re out," she said.
“Then when someone you really, really love, someone that you regard as your absolute best friend in the world, when you’re lied to and you discover they cheated on you, or they finally tell you they’re cheating on you because they’re riddled by guilt or whatever, I didn’t walk away. I couldn’t. I was so confused.”
She added that the confusion was also a side effect from her surgery as she was undertaking a bunch of medication and steroids to prevent her brain from swelling.
Doherty and Iswarienko tied the knot in 2011 and filed for divorce earlier this year in April.
The actress revealed that she struggled with her decision to file for divorce, and did talk to “girlfriend of two years that he cheated on me with.”
“And honestly, it’s still really hard. Yes, I made the decision to file for divorce, but I have a lot of memories with this person,” she said.
She added that although she takes responsibility for some of the issues in their marriage, she does not take responsibility for the "demise" of it.
“I take responsibility not only because of how I was but because of how cancer impacted my marriage and how it impacted him the second time around," she said.
"I do not take responsibility for the demise of our marriage because I am not a quitter. If somebody is still showing me loyalty and respect and love, I’m going to hang in there. I’m going to try my hardest," she added.
Despite three failed marriages, the actress said that she still believes in love.
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