Shannen Doherty Recalls Being 'Gaslighted' in 'Bad Relationships,' Says 1 Ex's Lack of Respect Led to 'Many, Many Affairs'

Shannen Doherty is reflecting on a previous relationship that left her feeling disrespected.

While the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum, 53, didn’t name her ex on the June 2 episode of her podcast Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, she discussed the emotional toll of being cheated on. The actress previously claimed her ex-husband, Kurt Iswarienko, was "intimately involved" with his agent prior to their divorce in April 2023.

She noted that she can understand a marriage or relationship not working, saying, “What I don't understand and what I can never wrap my head around is why someone thinks that they don't owe you as a human being respect... I know that for me personally, it's been very hard to find that somebody I was in a relationship with wasn't just one affair. It was like many, many affairs. So for me, that's like, wow.”

She wondered if the ex didn’t respect her “from day one,” adding, “If you didn't respect me from day one, why would you marry me? Why would you commit to a relationship if you couldn't even be loyal from almost, I think, what a year and a half after we were married or something?” 

Doherty added the ex’s alleged indiscretions didn’t allow for the divorce to be “amicable because it just changes the dynamic.”

She shared that she lost respect for her ex after learning of his alleged affairs.

“You no longer have respect for the other person,” she said. “I lost all respect. I lost any ounce of love I had left in me for this person and... despise seems like a harsh word, but I mean it in the sense of when you have that little respect for someone that I then eventually developed, you kind of do despise them."

She added: “They either fail to exist to you, which is probably the healthiest thing, or you just can't stand them.”

PEOPLE has reached out to Iswarienko's rep for comment but did not receive a response.

Later in the podcast, Doherty shared that she believes sometimes people need to “learn their lessons” the hard way.

“Sometimes being in bad relationships, dealing with a narcissist and being gaslighted or whatever is necessary for the person to sort of grow and learn a lesson,” she explained. “You hope that it's not necessary because what you know, it's a horrible thing to go through. Certainly.” 

She added: “I know that currently, I'm in a very different place than I was over a year ago.” 

The Charmed alum shared, “I've such a fight on my hands with cancer that I don't have the time for fights with everybody else. I just don't. And certainly not in my personal life. And I don't have time for somebody who cheats.”

On the first episode of Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty in December, Doherty shared how she went into surgery to remove a brain tumor after learning that her 11-year marriage to her third husband Iswarienko was “essentially over.”

“I went into that surgery early in the morning and I went in after I found out that my marriage was essentially over, that my husband had been carrying on an affair for two years,” she said. “To not go in that surgery, even though, being very clear, he wanted to go, I couldn't go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed.”

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The actress said that she discovered Iswarienko had been cheating on her for many months.

“At the end of the day, I just felt so incredibly unloved by someone I was with for 14 years, by someone I loved with all my heart,” Doherty continued, adding that she was supported through the operation by her mom, brother and best friends. 

“Just to have to go through all of that while trying to figure out if you’re going to get a f---- divorce and trying to get to the truth of that,” she added.