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March 1993 - US magazine

Interview by Margy Rochin, photos by Lou Salvatore.

The Us Interview: Shannen Doherty (part 1)

Brawling brat or maligned innocent? Amid a stinging backlash, the '90210' actress defends her reputation.

THOSE WHO WANT TO believe the worst about TV star Shannen Doherey might enjoy her split-second screen debut in 1982's Night Shift when she brained a nebbishy Henry Winkler with a box of cookies. But sho much brouhaha has surrounded the Memphis-born actress of late that most seem to forget her existence pre-Beverly Hills, 90210. By the time the former child actress landed at the Fox network, she'd already wound her way through television series like Little House: A New Beginning and Our House as well as several film roles, including Heathers. In it, Doherty seemed to be polishing up her signature moves — the imperial flounciness, the unexpected flashes of vulnerability, the narrowing of her hazel eyes to show when she is seriously ticked off. All these mannerisms would later resurface in her breakthrough role as Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210.

At this point, everyone knows that Brenda and her cute twin brother, Brandon (Jason Priestley), started out as 90210’s moral center, two do-gooding émigrés from Minneapolis, drifting through a high school hallway full of “indulged brats and future Zsa Zsas,” as the Los Angeles Tinies put it. But the centrifugal force of every evening soap is a dark-hearted character. And somewhere along the way, the baton was passed to Doherty.

Soon enough, Brenda’s perky mood had curdled (although ar least one 90210 writer would suggest that it wasn’t the dialogue, but the flinty backspin Doherty put on her lines). Lately, television watchers have wearied of watching her behave like a sourpuss. So much so that two enterprising, young pop-culture hounds tapped into the zeitgeist and published an underground antifanzine, the I Hate Brenda Newsletter, consisting mostly of semiasthentic-sounding gossip about Doherty's real-life excesses.

The American public seers to forgive ungovernable male stars, but has lite tolance for obstreperous women; Roseanne Arnold, Cher and Cybill Shepherd could have told Doherty that. And almost from the very beginning, word had filtered back from the 90210 set that Doherty was an unapologetic headache — demanding and prone to temperamental outbursts. Offstage, her reviews weren't much beter. There was her last-minute walk from the 1992 Emmys, for which Emmy producer and director Walter Miller crowned her “a colossal pain in the ass".

Some flip remarks of hers on The Dennis Miller Show cost her months’ worth of monologue put-downs. Last summer, those many liberals among her 90210 following her were aghast to discover her, hand over heart, leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the Republican National Convention. She followed that with a well-publicized fracas involving Bonita Money, an sping actress, at a Los Angeles nightclub. Even Doerty wasn't surprised when the utterance of her name at the 1992 Billboard Music Awards elicited boos from the audience.

Yes, it’s true that Brenda wins back her whispery-voiced ex-boyfriend Dylan (Luke Perry). Yet the word on the Fox lot was that Aaron Spelling, whose company produces the show, was fed up with Doherty, thinking of terminating her contract or at lease exiling Brenda to a far-off college. When contacted, no one, not Spelling, not the show's producers, not any of Doherty’s 90210 costars, were available to defend her.

What seemed most conspicuously missing from the newspaper accounts was the twenty-one-year-old's assessment of her deteriorating state of affairs. So the agreement was we'd lay out the reports – some believable, some almost mythically overripened – and let Doherty tell her side of the story. We met at a photographer's studio in West Los Angeles, where Doherty lived up to her end of the deal. She answered every single question forthrightly and without a trace of self-pitty, chain-smoking and looking far too young to be so reviled.

Why do you suppose that people want to assume you're a bitch?

I don't know. I think one of the main problems is that my character searced off very sweet and gradually she became sappy. She takes everything too seriously and feels like she's being f---ed over all the time. [People] aren't separating Shannen and Brenda Walsh. They hate the character, so they automatically hate me.

Let's talk about the "Billboard" awards. Did you have any premonition that the crowd would not be with you?

Yeah, I warned all my representatives that I shouldn't do it. But they said, "You're already committed, you can’t back out because it will look like the Emmys. They'll blow it up into a big thing." So five minutes before I went on, I looked at my manager and said, "I'm going to get booed. I know it's going to happen. And you're responsible, because you put me on here."

What happened backstage? I was very, very upset. | was crying, saying, "I can’t believe you put me out there." I mean, it was horrible. I've never been more hurt in my entire life. Then this guy that was hanging out with Arrested Development came over to me and said, “Let me tell you something: You'll dic, they'll die, we all die sometime and the world keeps on spinning. They don't know you. You're talented, you're beautiful, you're a great girl. So just forget it."

Why do you think the audience booed you?

Everybody thinks that I punched some girl at a bar.

Did you? No.

You're referring to the December incident with Bonita Money. What happened?

To cut to the chase, there was tension between my table from the beginning, because they wanted to sit where I was sitting and the owner of the club had sat me there. My friend – I'd rather not give his name, but it wasn't [90210 costar] Brian Austin Green – stepped on a man's foot and apologized, and [the man] didn't really accepted his apology. Then Brian thought my friend said that he had stepped on this man's foot and Brian apologized. By that time we were standing in front of their table, as we were leaving the club, I bent down and said, "Excuse me, what's going on?" This man looked at me and said, "I don't like you, that's what's going on." I saud, "All right," and tried to pull away, but he grabbed my arm. My friend had my other arm and was trying to pull me away. I started to stand up to leave, and out of nowhere, Bonita Money, who I've never laid eyes on – never had any talk with at all – just hit me in my left cheek. Just hit me right here.

"It's ridiculous that somebody can be so attention-starved that they can hit a celebrity [and] get away with it..."

Did she slap you or did she punch you?

Kind of closed fist. I just looked at her, and I was crying. My friend and brian grabbed me, took me into the bar. Security was called. The police arested her, took her downstairs. they asked me if I wanted to file charges, I said yes. When they told her, sge said, "Well, I'm pressing charges, too".

[Bonita Money responds, in part: "I think most of that's right up until the point of [my friend's] grabbing her. [He] never grabbed her. Money also claims she did not hit Doherty and adds, "She just kind of grabbed me. Then I grabbed her and threw her away from the table."]

It's ridiculous that somebody in this world, somebody in L.A., can be so attention-starved that they can hot a celebrity, get away with it, and get so much publicity. She did A Current Affair, she did Howard Stern... I find it upsetting that all these people actually let her on their shows. We went to [the hearing], and the [hearing officer] couldn't really male a clear-cut decision, so she said that all the charges were dropped against both parties. It's over.

Do you feel satisfied with the outcome?

No, I'm not satisfied. It says something about our judicial system, I think. The D. A.'s office should press charges against her. She got free publicity at my expense and made me look very bad... It did a lot of damage to me. I had advertising companies drop me. I lost money.

Do you have a bodyguard?

I do now.

How has that affected your life?

It's a major drag not to be able to go out and just hang with your friends and stuff. But I guess fornow I have to.

Is the lesson, then, that it is sometimes better to back down?

I wasn0t really raised that way, that's probably my problem. I was raised to stand up for myself, if I feel I'm in the right. Maybe it would have been best if I'd just gone home with my swollen cheek... She has a mean left hook.

(Part 2)

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