Let's Go Back to the Beginning...with Mama Rosa (Part 2)

Published Jun 3, 2024, 4:00 AM

Part two of Shannen's career conversation with her mom heads into more personal territory. 

From her honest take on relationships and betrayal, to refusing to let tabloids tell her story, Shannen opens up like never before

in the latest episode of Let's Be Clear.

This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty.

Hi all, Welcome to another episode of Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty, Part two with Mama Rosa, Hi Mom.

Hey baby.

All right, So, I think where we left off as we were talking about Little House in New Beginning and Michael and Ralph Bellamy and Victor French and sort of we'd gone through Father Murphy and everything else. So and I was pretty clear about how that was one of the best experiences I had ever had and I think still ever had. Just everybody was really warm and the crew was fantastic. Lirus poker was really fun, you guys. By the way, Liarus poker is where you take the serial numbers off of a dollar bill and you play with that and like if there's more ones, everybody goes, okay, you know, two ones, And then I have to look at everyone and figure out like, oh, maybe I have two ones and my dollar bill plus someone saying two ones, so then I could up it by saying five ones. And it either keeps something upped or somebody will come in with like, you know, fives or tens or whatever. So it's and then you can call someone and if they're bluffing. Obviously they lose, and if you call them, you win. That's Lyrus poker, all right. It's actually very fun. Sounds a little strange, but it's fun, especially when you're a kid on a set and you're essentially gambling at a very young age poker. Yeah, but I want a lot of dollars. I won that all the time. I went against like who Show and all my crewmembers it was, and Michael would always stand like buy me and be so proud because he's the one who taught me how to play. It was very awesome to see after a little house. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was before our house.

It was before our house. Okay, yeah absolutely, And yeah you were in that not quite your teen years, kind of a preteen going into teen.

It was like it was very exciting for you, right because it was Helen Hunt, Sarah Jisca Parker, Jonathan Silverman, Leah Montgomery. Like it was a cool cast. Everybody was really nice. I mean I was clearly super young and they were all adults, but I just remember looking at all of them being.

Like, oh my god, they're the coolest people ever. And they didn't treat me.

So differently because again, I had schooling on the set and you were there and I was a kid, So it's not like.

It's not like I was one of them. I wasn't.

But I didn't ever feel like I was miss misplaced on the set.

You were never misplaced. And the interesting thing about it is really like the age group that was portrayed in the movie itself was basically in an age group that you were kind of in. And so you as a preteen almost a teen looking at them. They were older, they were dancing, they were having all the and you were just so in all of them and what they were doing.

Right, So it was a lot like life.

So that went. That went really well. And then I got on Our House, Yes, pretty much, And that was with Wilford, Brimley and Dandro Hall, and that was pretty phenomenal.

Kerry and Chad.

And I got very close to Wilford, Yes, she did on that show and his family had family son.

I mean.

The interesting about Wilford is he was a wrangler originally before becoming an actor, and he was very much into horses, and he had house in Salt Lake City and then he had a ranch in Lehigh. In Lehigh, Utah. He was also a phenomenal skier, Yes, like phenomenal his A good friend of his was a man by the name of Off Engden who had held the record for I think the longest like jump in skiing. Yeah, it was some crazy thing. And when Wilford invited us kids to go skiing, he the first thing was he got us all lessons with Off. And it's where I learned how to ski. Not that I ski anymore. I'm too afraid of breaking bones. But uh, but that was and just to see like Wilford and the grace he had and Off, like two older men, just so graceful, so beautiful, perfect skiing. I think I was more of a daredevil back then. So I would go and yeah, I would go on runs that I should never have been on.

But I did. Okay, you did great, I did, right, I heard I was not on the ski run, so you were. I have no idea.

But he also gave me a horse, Yes he did. He gave me a horse named Brownie, and Brownie was a quarter horse. Brownie was fantastic. Brownie ended up having a broken wither bone. Yeah I had a broken witherbone. But Wilford really really really got me back enthused, not that I'd ever lost my enthusiasm, but I didn't have, like, specifically my.

Own horse, not until you did. Robert Kennedy in his times.

Yes, and Little House was before all of that, right, Yes, oh amazing.

I just got our house, Little House. The wording mixense.

I'm not sure if I've talked about Robert Kennedy and his times before, but Veronica Cartwright, Jason Bateman, Jason Bateman, and he was He's.

Jason has always been wonderful. Yeah, and his mother as well.

Right.

So when I auditioned for Robert Kennedy in this time, they asked me if I rode horses. I said yes. They said can you jump? I said how high? And I got the job and then broke the news to my mother that I needed to learn how to ride a horse and quickly. So I leased a horse called Old Dominion, but his bar name was Joey, and Old Dominion was a little bit of a famous horse. But I had this trainer named Hugh Todd that was I think he was on the Canadian Olympic team at one time yet at one time, and he was a phenomenal trainer because he made me get on Joey aka Old Dominion, and I had to learn how to ride without stirrups, without reins, so I could really build my leg and build my seat, and.

The proper method of learning how to yes and.

Then even made me take like small jumps without stirrups. It was pretty crazy, but you know it's it's even though I don't ride as much as I used to, I still have a really good seat because that comes right back to you that you know how you're supposed to do it. But Joey and I spent I think a majority of our time just I just like to bathe him because he loved his teeth being brushed, so you would, like, you know, do this thing with his lips and like just flash me his teeth and hold it there until I scrub scrub scrubbed, and then when I stopped, he would do it again and like nudge me and do it again. He loved that. So that really started my love of horses. But I was only leasing him, and then when his lease came up, they they didn't renew the lease because I think they were using him for something else. But so then when Wilford gave me Brownie, it was like thrilling. It was like, oh my god, like I have my own horse. I have my own horse now, and which as a kid, you don't think about what all comes with that. You don't think about the fact that you have to pay for boarding, you have to pay for food, you have to pay for when you can't be there because you're working, You have to pay for someone to go and exercise your horse, and you have to pay you know, the barn that he was that Brownie was at. I think they had like a groom, but it always you know, included in the price.

But it was expensive.

And as a kid, you don't always realize that. Now you realize the expense of something like that.

Is well, yeah, I mean, but how many horses did I end up with? Was like, you know, Picasso, Luisito, Alberto Domingo, Aries, Thunder Am I missing one Sammy and Sammy another horse that was given to me. So I had seven horses and I'd rented out like the backbarn of this place, and so I had to pay the rent. I know, I'm jumping around you guys. I had to pay the rent plus grooms, plus feed, and we fed our horses like extraordinarily well yes, there was just an amazing amount of supplements and mash and Timothy Hay and it was those bills. That's when I really discovered how.

Much horses cost.

And I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna have to work for the rest of my life just to pay for this.

And I discovered how much I did. I discovered how much work.

Was into right because you took over. Okay, so we're skipping.

We're skipping, we're skipping, go back to our house and the wonderful gift that Wilford gave me and are skiing and just that whole experience. Because I think I was like, what fourteen or fifteen when I got on that show, So.

If you had your sixteenth birthday on there, that gave you a big birthday party on the set, and you had already been there for a year two years, So yeah, it was in that range. You were fourteen fifteen years old when you started.

It and just watching Wilford, who was very strong, very strong, very very very strong, and boy, when he didn't like an episode or scenes, the writers definitely knew it. He was not afraid to express his displeasure at something, and he was very.

Protective of the three of you, the children.

Yes, extremely protective, you know, wanted to make sure that we were happy, that we were represented well, that we were being treated fairly, that we weren't working too late. And he really like felt for not only himself, but for the three of us kids on that show.

It was it was pretty wild.

And then you just see, like, you know, these experiences all helped me see how different people conducted themselves on sets and what was appropriate and what wasn't. And you know, Deirdre Hall was a famous soap opera actress and she was also strong, but she was very nice. I really liked her, and I think I could have learned more from her had I paid attention, because she was very diplomatic. She would get her point across and get what she wanted, but she did it in an incredibly diplomatic way. I don't know if that was being on soaps for so long days of our lives. I think it was a show. She was on it.

And her dressing room she decorated it so pretty.

She had she had them bring in I don't remember if it was like a little hat. I think it was almost like a little house. Onto the sound stage, she decorated it. She put in a gay bed and everything else in her your little dresser, and yeah it was. She had her own spot on the sound stage and they put for the kids. They had you each had your own little trailer, like the little travel trailers on set, which made it wonderful because it was kind of like round up your wagons for the es and then the stand ins, who were like phenomenal as well. It would all be there and we had like a little I guess it was an artificial turf type of thing that they put down in front of all the trailers and had a little table and we played the stand ins and I when the kids were shooting and we would play gin roal may. They taught me how to play gin romany. So I was having a very intolerable time as well, and you were having like such a good time working on that show.

And school was upstairs.

School was upstairs.

Yeah, school was upstairs.

Wilfrid's trailer was outside, yes, because it was a pretty big trailer, but also because he had been a wrangler before. He had like the fake cowhead thing and he spent all of his time roping, yes, which was amazing, And I mean I just remember he was really good friends with like Robert Davall and Richard Farnsworth and all of these super cool people that I knew kind of from their work but also just from rolling Like they'd roll up to the set and say hi to him, and I'd be.

Like, am I shaking Robert Devall's hand?

Like it was a pretty crazy thing, but they were they were all cow boys.

They were all cowboys.

They were just like cowboys who got into acting were successful, but they were cowboys. So I think Our House was a really good experience too. Yes, a I was still young and learning.

It was a great experience. Yeah, And it was you know, and being with an older generation. I always think that's wonderful when you have an opportunity to do that because you're you're learning different things, you're seeing different things. It's interesting as a child, I think, to experience that, and as a parent watching a child watching that, it's even more interesting because the things that I see you taking away from different situations. Yeah, I think sort of.

The only bad moment on that show was when we had a dog on the show, and there was a scene where the dog was supposed to like lick chat out in's face, yes, on our house, and they they put this camp they put this like cream cheese with a die in it so it would look like his skin color. And they did probably way too many takes, and the dog had a reaction and bit.

Like Chad's lip, but really badly.

I think he had thirty some odd stitches.

It was.

That was horrible also, though, I will say, and it's like the dog was not it was a male dog, it was not neutered.

Was it a beagle?

It was a basset hound.

Oh, that's right.

But I will say that what I was told was that at the time Chad had a little dog and they had brought the dog to set to you know, to the stage and in his dressing room. So he was holding this dog and this little female dog was apparently and heat as well. So naturally with Chad being around his own dog and then around this other dog.

Yeah maybe, I mean, we don't know, we don't know if it's true. I don't know.

That's just what we had been but I know that that was like highly traumatic, mainly for Chad obviously, but everybody's sort of watching it was like.

And then they wanted to put you two girls back in with the dog. Yeah, that was yeah, happy you said no. You were like, my daughter's not going near that dog. At the time, we didn't have cell phones or anything, so and I wasn't like that the mother that would be like no. I was like, I just said, we need to go excuse ourselves to go to the bathroom, which we didn't have bathroom's own sound stages then. And I just made a phone call to a representative and was like, this is what's happening. What would you have me too? I knew you weren't quarterback with dog and that, and then just by the time we got back, it was taking care.

Yeah. So other than that, our house was a great, wonderful experience. It was very like family oriented and I think that the show was really good because it was It did deal with family issues, yes, but it was wholesome.

It was very wholesome.

Like my character Chris Witherspoon, all she wanted to do was be the first female was an astronaut. And I think in real life I got invited to the Air Force Academy or something.

You got invited in. I believe it was in North Carolina. It was I forget the anniversary it was a major, big Air Force anniversary, the whole thing, and you were the guests of honor and they presented you with different things and it was amazing.

And what was really cool is I think that I think to have such a young character as Chris Withuerspoon being like, here's what i want to do with my life and as a woman, I'm going to achieve something no woman has achieved. I like, I personally found her incredibly inspiring as a young girl. Even now when I look back on that TV show, I'm like, Wow, that was steps and steps and steps ahead.

Yeah, very which I kind.

Of you know, look at most of the stuff that I've done, and I think it's all been a few steps ahead.

A lot of it definitely has.

Like even nine O two one O.

You think about nine oh two O and all the issues that we dealt with us on that show, from like you know, date rape to alcoholism to you know, relationships, friends, cheating. That that was all stuff that wasn't really discussed a lot back then and certainly not on a TV show. So I think for the most part, all the shows that I've done have brought have been able to bring families together, so that there's more of an openness to talking about these issues that kids did face and continue to face.

I think it goes back to, like I know, in my life and in my time, and we always sat down and watched television as a family. There was one show particularly though, that was on call the Untouchables. It was, and it would come on the screen every night. When it would come on, it would say this is not appropriate viewing for children. And so you knew that you didn't do that. And then even every night it would say, it's eight o'clock or ten o'clock, whatever time, do you know where your children are? So it was a whole different dynamic then than it is when you were a child, and then the kids now today. It's amazing to look back and see the progression.

I mean, we still obviously a very long way to go, because I think that, particularly in my business, I think there's still a lot of like misogyny, Like I think that there's a lot of men that still carry over that attitude. It's like how they were raised, or it's how they view the business, or finally they're like, ooh, I have a little bit of power because I'm a manager or I'm an agent or I'm a producer. I mean, that's a whole other topic that we've sort of gotten on before about like how women are treated in this business. And I think I've said it that I don't think that things have changed nearly enough, but at least there's some change.

Well. I think we have to look at the different situations as they present themselves. I still and I think if I were twenty years old now, I still appreciate a gentleman opening the door for me. I appreciate these things, but I also appreciate the fact that if you're going in and you have the same ability to do the same job, then that's the equality of the situation should be.

It should be, and it's gotten a lot better. I don't think it's one hundred percent there yet, because I think people still consider like maternity leave an issue when hiring a woman or other things, and that's not good because there should be complete equality across the board. However, I'm with you, I'm not like a huge feminist in this sense of I remember a guy can to pick me up in a date and and I walked out of my front door, and he opened his car door and got in, and I was like, what m M. And I stood outside the car door. I would not open it, and he rolled down the window. He's like, what are you doing. I'm like waiting for you to open my car door, and he was like huh, and he got out and came around. He opened my car door and I went, yeah, no, thank you, and he's like what. I'm like, this is not going to work out. This is already a really bad start, Like you don't have manners and you're not treating a female like they should be treated. So I'm skipping this date completely. Never call me again. And maybe to some of you that seems a bit harsh, but for me it was. You know, I grew up with my dad always opening your car door and treating you as an equal and showing you a lot of respect and respecting your brain, and so that's what I was used to and it's what I wanted from myself, And yes, I obviously strayed from that to some degree, but never with the car door opening, I focused on something that I probably probably should have been more focused on more important things, but like loyalty would have been something that would be more important to focus on.

Loyalty. Well, we also talk loyalty. Yeah, it's the.

First thing opened a car door might have chosen wrong.

I know when I was approached about marriage, it was one of the probably the first discussion we had before I was accepting marriage. It was like the loyalty to each other, right, and that you know, you give me this respect and I give you this respect, and if there's a problem, we come together with it. Then if we can't see eye to eye and we need to go our separate ways, then you do it. Do that amatably and having respect for each other and the relationship and if there were children, which eventually there were, that respect for those children and what's best for You're still family.

Right, Because I understand relationships marriage not working out, like clearly I understand it. What I don't understand and what I can never wrap my head around, is why someone thinks that they don't owe you as a human being respect.

Yes, And.

Two I know that for me personally, it's been very hard to find that. You know, somebody I was in a relationship with wasn't just one affair, it was like many many affairs. So for me, that's like, wow, so did you not respect me from day one? Like if you didn't respect me from day one? Why would you marry me? Why would you commit to relationship if you couldn't even be loyal from almost Like I think, what like a year and a half after we were married or something like that, to me is just And that's when I find that a divorce cannot be amicable because it just changes the dynamic. You no longer have respect for the other person, Like I lost all respect, I lost any ounce of love I had left in me for this person, and I just I know, despise seems like a harsh word, but I mean it in the sense of when you have that little respect for someone that I then eventually developed, you kind of do despise them. You're kind of just like you, don't you know, they either fail to exist to you, which is probably the healthiest thing, or you just can't stand them anyway.

That's how different episode.

Yeah, I know, I know.

I like skipping around because I think that a podcast like mine is all about like being clear and sometimes the thoughts aren't always linear, but somehow, you know, one thing will drive you to start thinking about something else and it's okay to you know, talk about it and go off subjects. Like, yes, we're supposed to be talking career stuff, but I think everything that happens in your personal life also impacts your career to such an extent absolutely.

And then another respect of that aspect of that is, say you quaint it to a cocoon. You're growing up. You're growing up in a family with values and respect for one another and everything else, and we're trying to prepare you to go eventually go whether you go to college or out in the world to work. I mean, whatever it is, if you're working in an outburg or whatever, is to still keep those values in your heart and your mind and the respect that you want for yourself. And I think sometimes not just in an entertainment industry, but in different industries, I think you get into something, into a situation, and it's just this is the cocoon that now you're in, and maybe your defenses lessen, they loosen, and suddenly things are happening before you even realize it.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

I think also your confidence changes, yes, you know mine, Yes, definitely went from being like a secure, happy kid working on these great sets and enjoying every single second to like a lot of pressure and a lot of stress and a lot of really unhappy moments on certain sets, like where I just couldn't I couldn't keep that like belief and confidence in myself. It's very hard to be ridiculed, and it's very hard to be judged. Yes, and I think that I don't care how old you are. Those things are hard to deal with.

I'm not the most confident in the world I know, but I have a lot of faith, So I have to pull a lot on my faith, which is to me's that's my base. You know. Sometimes I just go somewhere and I cry and I get I'm like okay, God, like get me through this. And other times it's like it's like like you, I'm like you. We sit down and we talk and it's like it pulls me through things, or like friends or just whatever. Sometimes you just need to get off by yourself. There are people who come into your life that when they come into their life, they're presenting themselves in one way and then slowly but surely who they are is beginning to take more and more control of you and your feelings. And you're looking because you've developed this love or this extreme like for this person, whatever you're looking past what you should be or would normally be looking at right. And that's what human beings overall have to tell themselves. No, I deserve more than this. I deserve respect, I deserve love. And then that's how we get through it. We just have to at some point talk ourselves to it, and sometimes we have to go through Helen Back before we can get to that point.

Well, I've certainly been through Helen Back.

You certainly, I will see.

I will say that I'm familiar with Helen Back a couple of times. I've been through Helen Back now.

And as a mother, as a parent, it's the most difficult thing in the world to not be able to just intervene and snatch your child out of that situation. And they're your child, regardless of age. It's always still as a parent, you just want to like snatch your child out of that situation and protect them, and you can't and you can't.

Go really because you know, at the end of the day, people have to learn their own lessons in life and sometimes being in bad relationships, dealing you know, with a narcissist and being you know, gaslighted or whatever is necessary for the person to to sort of grow and learn a lesson. You hope that it's not necessary, because what you know, it's a horrible thing to go through. Certainly, you know, I know that now. Currently I'm in a very different place than I was, you know, over a year ago, I was in a definitely, Yeah.

You've gained your strength back.

I have such a fight on my hands with cancer that I don't have the time for fights with everybody else. I just don't, and certainly not in my personal life. And I don't have time for somebody who cheats.

There's no excuse for that. Instantly, there's no excuse for that.

It's no excuse for say, you have all the opportunity to say to somebody, I'm really sorry, this isn't working for me anymore, and I need something else or somebody else in my life, and I'm going to go out and I'm going to search for that, and I'm showing you the respect to let you know so we can end this relationship amicably and respectfully to one another. That's the way it should be done. And unfortunately, whether it's male or female, it happens.

Too often either sex. Yeah, and too often, far too often. We've definitely gone off in a different direction childhood, career flash too, my life in the last decade. Yeah, okay, so I'll try to get back on track. I really like where we're going because I just think it's an honest, you know, mother daughter conversation, and it's one that we've had before. But every time, I think, you know, you learn more about certain things that I went through, and I learn more about your position. And that's not to say that sometimes our conversations don't get heated, you know, they do. Like sometimes I'll be like, I.

Don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it. It's enough.

Don't you think I know what an idiot I am? And you're like, I'm not saying that you're an idiot, just you know, go use it the way that you were raised. You probably didn't use the term I was saying, I'm an idiot. You don't have to rub it in. But for eight out of ten conversations that we have, I think they're very respectful and very much about like they're very much about love and how to get through everything and not just me but you as well.

Absolutely getting older is not I've never felt my age and I've never felt my age.

Do you feel it now when I have to repeat myself three times because you can't.

Hear it, it's my hearing and I'm going to I'm going to a doctor for that.

I'm sure once you're the doctor, you're going to hear perfectly.

I'm seventy six years old. My mother ended up with My mother's ninety seven, but she didn't have a hearing aid till she was probably eighty seven. And my dad passed away at eighty and he had a hearing aid, and I was just hoping. I'm just hoping I'm still here.

You don't need you don't need a hearing aid. It's just you know, maybe a deep cleaner.

So maybe that's all.

But that's probably our biggest moments now between each other. It's like what I'll say something and you're like hot, I'm like, and then I say it again, and then I say it really loud, and then you're like, you don't have to yell at me, and I'm.

Like, oh, but you can't hear.

Or you'll just say just for yeah.

I like to say just forget it because I hate repeating myself. It's one of those things. But I also according to you my voice goes in and out of different timbres.

It does. Your your voice will get very low like this and very soft.

Nobody knows you.

And sometimes your lips are not open as much.

That one you said to me for the first time the other day, and I was never so annoyed. I was like, what are you talking about that my mouth or my lips don't like, Yes, they do.

I was so annoyed by that comment.

As you can see, we really love each other.

We do.

We definitely do. Okay, So we we covered like super early career recovered. I think we covered our house for the most part, wouldn't you say yes?

And there were a lot of there were things in between. There were various movies of the week which were wonderful.

Oh the one with Lindsay Wagner, The Other Woman.

Yes, oh yes, working with the Bionic Woman, you were really excited.

But she was so cool, very cool.

She was really really, really nice and smart and a great actress. Again, working with on Robert Kennedy's Times, just that cast was insane.

And then it was you Victoria. Wasn't that Jason's mom's name, Victoria?

Yes?

And Jason Bateman and he was pretty much the first person I formed a crush on.

We were young. Do you remember we were in Hyanna Sport, right.

Yes, we were in Hyanna Sport and when.

It was cold.

It was this really old empty house. We had a table in chairs and it was really cold and even with like whatever the heat was, it wasn't since we heated. We were all in big down coat at the time. It was very which reminds me of another.

It was snowing some of the time there.

It was snowing most of the time.

And the hotel that we were at they had an indoor pool, a heated indoor pool, Yes, And after work, you and Victoria would take with the two kids, Jason and myself and we would swim and you ladies would chat and it was so much fun. And he's someone that you knew even back then that he had something incredibly special about he was.

At the time, a lot of people gave him the term as being precocious, and I saw it as this smart, smart discipline from the family child, not like a hard discipline, but.

He knew there were probably rules in that house.

Yes, what's interesting there was also a young girl on the set played one of the younger Kennedy children. I can't remember her name, and her sister was with her. Her sister was hmm, I guess she was eighteen or older because she was. She was there with her her mom. Their mom was there too, so she might not have been. But at the time she was just a lovely human being. She later became the wife of Michael Landon Junior. Really, yes, she was lovely. She was absolutely lovely. I thought, what a beautiful girl. Huh yeah, And that was being told. The only other time I remember being colder than that was when you were shooting a Disney film in the mountains of Utah and they brought Dad and myself we were there. That gave us a house, a really nice house on this golf course. And the first time they took us to set, and they invited Dad and myself to go to set, it was way up in the mountains and they had these moon boot like boots for us. It was a Disney show. I can't remember the name of it. It was a movie, a Disney movie, and they put these huge, big down coats on us and hoods. I mean, we were bundled up.

We could hardly walk, but we were so happy to have it Hull. The only other time I don't remember that at all. The only other time I really remember being freezing was I think also in Utah, but I was older, you guys were not there, and my best friend at the time, Deborah Woknin, was a stylust and so I requested her for the movie.

It was a movie called The Ticket, and I remember that.

We were I mean, you literally could not get to set unless you were on a snowmobile or some no cat and.

You went way even further up.

That was crazy.

It was freezing, but Deborah did such a good job that she kept me warm, and she also kept it where apparently my character just had on so many front layers. Periodically she would like strip down to another to finally get to like a cat suit.

Was hysterical.

I would say, only Deborah would find a way to make there be more wardrobe changes in a movie that should have only really been one wardrobe change.

But she managed it.

That's the only time I remember being like freezing cold but manageable because what she did.

Well and they had a good little group of kids, and at some point they wanted them to do this scene that was kind of like shot on a fliff or something that was not really safe, and some of the mothers were really upset about it. And eventually on set showed up this really tall, big man and he was the SAG representative. They had sent a SAG representative to set.

Native American yes like us.

Yes, my great great grandmother was actually taken from her home in Mississippi where she was married to the great great grandfather and he was a US marshal. Anyway, she marched, you know, and the trail of tears on foot from Mississippi to Oklahoma. And the story goes that eventually the grandfather, being a US marshal and they were about everything, he went and got her and brought her back.

That's a pretty phenomenal story.

Yeah, here we go into family.

I know. I mean, my brain today is just skipping and a very private person. See, you should have said no when I was like we got to do part two, should be like I'm done.

Oh, It's kind of like I was like, how did part one go? And I don't think I ever got an answer, So I was kind of I.

Said, I haven't checked, okay, but you know, I haven't checked in a while because you know, different episodes resonate with people. I think what I decided on the podcast is as long as I'm being truthful, honest, clear, sharing parts of my life and helping people with cancer or any sort of illness at all, I'm having good doctors on if people are learning something that I don't care if it's five people listening or one hundred thousand, Like at the end of the day, I have to feel really good about waking up and recording a podcast because it's not you know, it takes time, it takes effort, It takes letting your guard down and your walls down, and being willing to go there with yourself and with others and including like your fans on the journey with you.

It's very cathartic for us. It was like we're just talking and it's.

Okay, right sit happens in life, and it's okay to talk about it, and it's okay to share it.

Listen.

There are certain things that you know, maybe I don't ever want to share. I don't really know. I'm not there yet. I know that, you know. Recently on my Instagram, I had to I didn't have to, but I chose to post a email that had been sent to my publicist from that terrible magazine in touch and listen. It's not like what they were going to print made me look bad, just I didn't need the added attention to something, and especially from a publication. If you want to call it that a trash mag that's probably a better word for them, or a better term for them to completely ignore the fact that we responded saying this is not true, don't print it. Yeah, and that they had decided that they were going to print it regardless. So for me, I shared that because a I wanted to get the jump on them and take their story away, take their power away from them, and give it back to me. And yeah, in my statement, I very much said this is none of your business, and it's not and this is again off track. But because I'm here with you and we just discuss this stuff, and because it was, you know, just last week, it is. I don't think that because I choose to share certain parts of my life in a podcast that that means that every aspect is up for judgment, ridicule, or to be written about, especially if it's not accurate. And if you're going to make up a lie so you have a story, so you have a byline, so you have a you know, something to catch people's attention so that they'll buy your stupid publication.

That's not fair.

No, it's not fair.

Being a public figure does not mean that I should be subjected to that, or anybody should be, because honestly, these people write these bad stories if their name is on it, as far as I'm concerned, they're a public figure. You want me to go through your trash, You want me to go through your closet and pull out every single skeleton and like put it out there, because that's the next step between sewing and calling you out and literally taking your entire life, every bad thing that you've ever done, or every good thing, but turning it into a bad that's the next step. And I don't ever want to be that person because I don't think it's fair to another human being. But these people need to start being responsible and hold themselves accountable. And I get that everybody needs to be to make money. I understand that. But you love going to work and you love making your own money, and you don't do it by trashing other people. Instead, you do it by working in retail where you care about your clients so much and you make them feel great and you care about your job, and that admirable. I don't care if you're a politician, if you're the President of the United States, or a gas station attendant or a janitor or an actor.

We all need to be more respectful.

When you're the mother of a child who's working, you get stuff, and there's jealousies and there's everything else. And I just always preferred to do what we signed up to do.

Like, you're not even in the public eye and people have written crazy stories about you.

It got to a point where when things were coming in the press, and because of your popularity all over the world, there were more things coming in the press. I would get certain women who would come in and they would say, oh, we heard that Shannon blah blah blah blah blah, and I would sit there and I would be nice, and I just wouldn't really. I'm like, well, you can't read everything. You can't you believe everything you read. Finally, one day I was just like, Okay, there's enough of this. I looked that there were two women came in together and they were telling me, oh, this, and I looked at them and I said, Okay, here's the situation in our home. I said, I have always told my children, not just Shannon, also my son, whatever happens in your life, daily life, everything, whatever happens, I don't want to hear it from somebody else. Let me hear it from you first. If I hear it from you first, then we can sit down, we can discuss it, and we can decide where we go with this. Right, And those two women never said in.

Other words, oh yeah, because by the way, that was true.

And you know, sometimes it would switch off, like sometimes I felt I could be more honest about certain things with you. Sometimes it was more with Dad. But one of you always knew what was happening in my life at that time. I never kept secrets from you, guys, you never kept secrets from me. I remember there was a story when I was pretty young, and it was like in National Inquirer or crap, which we all know David Becker and an appropriate name, and it was something about like you being grossly overweight and Michael Landon trying to help you, but like you were on your and you weren't.

I wasn't grossly over wait, you weren't. I was like heavier than I.

Would want to bagbor, but you weren't in the public eye.

There was absolutely zero reason to write a lie.

You know.

Yeah, but it literally.

Said something like you were about to die and they had to do an intervention. It was just like, you know, one of the articles written about me saying that I was sleeping on my AA sponsor's couch because I was so scared of the drink and I had never been to AA. It's like, wait, what's happening right now? And then you get advised, oh, don't fight this, don't waste your money suing because today's paper is.

Tomorrow's cat litter lining.

And so you go throughout your life being written about so poorly and it's incredibly hurtful and.

You don't fight back.

And I'm definitely in my era of fighting back, that's for sure. It started a little while ago, probably started with cancer. Really when I said that's enough, it's enough for me. I remember when I agreed to do the nine O two and oh reboot. I wasn't even working yet. I was because I was still dealing with you know, cancer coming back and cancer coming back at stage four. So everybody else started work way before me. But it was all about the writers being miserable, and they kind of blamed it on me, and I did a post saying this is why it was so hard for me to agree to do another nine O two and zero, because for some reason, these trashy writers seem to think that it opens the door to more lies about me. And I'm not gonna like I'm not tolerating the narrative anymore. I tolerated it my entire life and I'm so friggin' done with it.

So done.

Like again in my post about in touch, Bryce, and I will sue you like I will. I am no longer the girl who's scared, no longer the girl who believes that it's cat litter. It lives on the internet forever, and if it's not true, I'm gonna sue or I'm gonna call you out on my Instagram or whatever. And God forbid one word about you or my brother oof oof, that would be hell for everyone.

Anyway.

Okay, you guys, I'm so sorry that we have literally jumped all over the place, and all I can say is that I wish I had actually made this podcast a duo because I'm really enjoying the episodes with my mom and talking about everything, so you can bet on the fact that she's going to be here a lot more.

And it's not a threat. Mom, I promise you enjoy it. It's good party.

But I always what you were saying, though I always want people do it is always like it's always you tried to take the higher road. But there will be times in your life when you're trying to take the higher road, but someone's constantly pushing you off, and you're going to have to stand strong and stand up for yourself, right, And I'm appreciated that you think you doing that.

I appreciate that A lot of my followers are like, you should not even engage in this stuff.

You're sick.

You need to focus, and I get that, and I thank you guys for your comments and your support and your opinions. But on the other hand, you have to understand when this has been happening to you your entire life, and you're fighting for your life and you're trying to do good for the world, You're trying to be honest, You're putting yourself out there. I think it would be worse for my health if I just let it go, because I would beat myself up about it. I would say, wow, Shannon, you're you know, you're being a wooss and you're not defending yourself, and everybody just comes away with this narrative view that isn't true when all I'm really trying to show all of you is who I really am, like who I've always been, and who I am deep down. So for me to say, for me to call someone out is actually really brave and courageous because I haven't had that bravery and courage.

And then I know the decision process that goes through your head before you do that. You don't do it irresponsibly.

No, definitely not anyway, thank you guys for listening to Let's be clear with Shannon Doherty and mom A Rosa.

Thank you everybody so appreciate it.

And yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode because I did. Bife

Let's Be Clear with Shannen Doherty

Let’s Be Clear… a new podcast from Shannen Doherty.   The actress will open up like never before in 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 74 clip(s)