Shannen Doherty reveals that her breast cancer has returned

Actress Shannen Doherty revealed Tuesday that her breast cancer has returned and reached stage 4, but that she had performed nonetheless in the recent "Beverly Hills, 90210" reboot.

"It's going to come out in a matter of days or a week that I'm stage 4," Doherty, 48, said on "Good Morning America” explaining that documents in her current lawsuit against the insurance company State Farm, which refer to her health issues, will soon be made public. "So my cancer came back," she told "GMA." "And that's why I'm here. … I'd rather people hear it from me. I don't want it to be twisted. I don't want it to be a court document. I want it to be real and authentic and I want to control the narrative. I want people to know from me."

Doherty had revealed in August 2015 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer earlier that year. Treatment followed, including a mastectomy in May 2016 and reconstructive surgery, and she announced in April 2017 that she was in remission. But a year ago she learned that the cancer had become metastatic, also known as stage 4, meaning it had spread (metastasized) to other parts of her body.

"I don't think that I've processed it," Doherty confessed. "It's a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways. … I definitely have days where I say, 'Why me?' And then I go, 'Well, why not me? Who else? ... Who else besides me deserves this?' None of us do."

Aside from immediate family, she told only Brian Austin Green, her fellow ensemble star on the 1990s Fox hit teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210" and its short-lived 2019 meta-sequel "BH90210."

"I had moments of great anxiety," Doherty recalled, "where I thought, 'I can't really do this,' and Brian was the one person who — of that group of people that knew — that I told, like, pretty quickly and said, 'Here, this is what I'm dealing with.' So prior to shooting he would always call me and say, 'Listen, y'know, whatever happens, like, I have your back.' "

She took on the recent series, she said, partly in order to be a model for others. "I thought, 'Well ... when I finally do come out I will have worked and worked 16 hours a day and it'll be good.' People can look at that and say, 'Ohmigod, yeah, she [can] work,' and other people with stage 4 can work, too. ... Our life doesn't end the minute we get that diagnosis. We still have some living to do." According to the information clearinghouse BreastCancer.org, "Many people continue to live long, productive lives with breast cancer in this stage. There are a wide variety of treatment options … and new medicines are being tested every day."

Later that morning, Doherty posted on Instagram a Charles Schulz "Peanuts" drawing of Charlie Brown and Snoopy looking out over water, the dialogue altered to read: "We only live once, Snoopy," to which the dog replies, "Wrong! We only die once. We live every day!"