Actress Shannen Doherty, best known for her TV roles on "Beverly Hills: 90210" and "Charmed," died Saturday of breast cancer at age 53, longtime publicist Leslie Sloane confirmed to People magazine on Sunday. 

"It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease," Sloane said.

"The devoted daughter, sister, aunt and friend was surrounded by her loved ones as well as her dog, Bowie. The family asks for their privacy at this time so they can grieve in peace," Sloane continued.

Doherty was first diagnosed with the cancer in 2015 at age 42. She went into remission for several years after treatment, but the cancer returned and metastasized to other parts of her body in 2019.

Cancer spreading

In 2020, Doherty announced that the cancer had spread to her brain and she had surgery to remove it.

She continued to work on and off while battling the disease, including a reboot of 90210. Her on-screen love interest Luke Perry predeceased her in 2019 when he had a massive stroke, and she did the reboot in part to pay tribute to him.

She spoke of her stage 4 cancer in 2023, telling People in November that she "didn't want to die."

“I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better,” she said. "I’m just not — I’m not done.”

"Why me?"

Doherty had her fair share of asking "why me?" about her diagnosis, but ultimately decided to get involved in fundraising for cancer research as a way of finding purpose in her suffering.

“When you ask yourself, ‘Why me? Why did I get cancer?’ and then ‘Why did my cancer come back? Why am I stage 4?,’ that leads you to look for the bigger purpose in life,” she said.

In exploring the idea of why something bad would happen to her, she was able to get beyond the concept of whether she "deserved" to have the disease.

"Who else besides me deserves this?' None of us do," she said.

Doherty was married three times, but did not have children because of the cancer and her fear that a child of hers would lose her at a young age.

She said that her faith sustained her to remain hopeful and grateful for her life. "My greatest memory is yet to come," she told People. "I pray. I wake up and go to bed thanking God, praying for the things that matter to me without asking for too much. It connects me to a higher power and spirituality. My faith is my mantra.”