Sarah Michelle Gellar has long flooded her Instagram account with photos of her and her close friend Shannen Doherty goofing off. But on Sunday, her nods to her pal of 30 years took a more sombre tone.
On Saturday, Shannen – best known for her roles in Charmed and Beverly Hills, 90210 – died from stage 4 cancer after living with the disease since 2015. She was 53.
After the news was confirmed, Sara Michelle paid tribute to Shannen by posting numerous snaps of the duo hanging out together through the years on her Instagram stories.
The Buffy The Vampire Slayer alum also honoured Shannen in a stand-alone post that included many of the same photos.
“How do you possibly find the right words to sum up 30 years of friendship?” Sarah Michelle began. “I keep reminding myself it only hurts this much because, there was so much love.”
Sarah Michelle went on to thank her followers who were aware of the close bond she and Shannen shared.
“I love all the messages about how [Shannen] was important to you,” Sarah Michelle wrote, before revealing the best way to “honour her”.
“More than anything, Shan loves animals, especially dogs. In her memory let’s support our favourite animal charities. Whether that’s donating money, stopping by your local shelter and just offering cuddles and walks to animals housed there or even just tagging them in the comments so other people can learn about their work,” she wrote.
Sarah Michelle ended her post by saying she knows “that would make our girl happy” and elicit “that deep throaty laugh we all loved”.
Shannen often spoke about her adoration for her dog, Bowie, and claimed in a 2016 interview with Entertainment Tonight that she believed Bowie sensed something was wrong with her before her 2015 cancer diagnosis.
“She would obsessively sniff right here on my right side for a long time before,” Doherty said at the time. “So, it made sense when I got diagnosed.”
The Charmed star also revealed in an April episode of her podcast Let’s Be Clear that she once considered turning one of her properties into a sanctuary for abandoned and abused horses, which she’d planned to run with her mother. However, she gave “up on my dream” of opening it due to her cancer diagnosis.
She was also vocal about her love for Sarah Michelle.
The two explained in an episode of Let’s Be Clear back in February that they met during a promotional shoot for the WB network. At the time, Sarah Michelle was starring on Buffy and Shannen was still part of the Charmed cast.
“When we met — the time period that we met — it wasn’t that much of a female-friendly time period at all,” Shannen recalled. “And yet, you really took me under your wing. You kind of scooped me up like a little baby bird, and you were like, ‘We got this! We got this!’”
Shannen added of Sarah Michelle’s support: “And that continued throughout my career, and more importantly throughout our lives.”
Sarah Michelle said that she was surprised by how quickly she took to Shannen, admitting that she’d also felt competitive with other female actors at that time in her career.
“That was out of my comfort zone, to go up to another woman and try to make friends, because I always thought women didn’t like me, or want to be friends … [but] I was such a fan, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk to you,” Sarah Michelle said, referring to Shannen’s work in Beverly Hills, 90210.
Their friendship certainly endured. Sarah Michelle supported Shannen during her initial diagnosis in 2015, and when her cancer returned in 2019, the Scooby Doo actor was one of the handful of people Shannen confided in, according to a 2020 profile in Elle.
The two women were so close that Shannen considered Sarah Michelle and her children — daughter Charlotte and son Rocky, whom Gellar shares with her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr. — as family.
“They are now like my children,” she told Entertainment Tonight in October 2020. “I love them madly. It’s even better than having my own children.”