Shannen Doherty Realized How ‘Pretty’ She Was as Young Actress Before Death

Before her untimely death, Shannen Doherty had an epiphany about her days as a young actress and how beautiful she had always been.

On Monday, July 29, the late Charmed alum posthumously appeared on the House of Halliwell podcast and revealed she had revelation about her physical appearance while rewatching the iconic early 2000s series.

“You know what’s really interesting about going and rewatching these as a woman is, I was like, ‘God, I was really pretty back then,'” she shared with a laugh. “And we’re not even wearing a lot of makeup. Granted, we have really good lighting and everything else, but I was so thin.”

Doherty went on to remark how she didn’t have “one wrinkle on my face” and while she “enjoyed” revisiting her past work, she confessed that for the “first time, it made me a little sad.”

“Youth is wasted on the young. I, one hundred percent, now that I’m 50, whatever I am, if somebody wants to do the math,” she joked. “I believe it now. Now is when I would really appreciate my looks and like the physique. I was so friggin skinny.”

The late actress quipped, “It just took a little thing like cancer for me to lose some weight, but I’m still not as skinny as I was back then.”

Under a snippet of the podcast episode posted to Instagram, her former costar Rose McGowan reacted to Doherty’s posthumous appearance on the screen.

“Ahhh it’s so not real that she’s gone. I keep thinking I’ll see her in 2 weeks,” she wrote. “It’s real but not real. Even at this late stage her beautiful mind so sharp, it never felt possible.”

“Love seeing you all together. Family forever ❤️ Shannen always,” she concluded.

Charmed ran from 1998 to 2006 and chronicled the story of the three Halliwell sisters: Prue (Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano). McGowan later joined as Paige Matthews, a long-lost half-sister, after Doherty’s departure.

On July 13, PEOPLE confirmed that Doherty died at age 53 after years of living with cancer.

“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,” Doherty’s longtime publicist Leslie Sloane confirmed in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE on Sunday, July 14.

“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.

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The Beverly Hills 90210 star was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and spoke candidly to PEOPLE in November 2023 about her Stage 4 breast cancer, which had by then spread to her bones, saying at the time 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 told PEOPLE. “I’m just not — I’m not done.”