Shannen Doherty and Katherine Heigl commiserated on their history of speaking out in Hollywood and how it affected their careers.
While on Doherty’s podcast “Let’s Be Clear,” Heigl — famous for “Grey’s Anatomy” before switching to movies — recalled how she first spoke out about bigotry on the ABC series to applause. However, it was when she started standing up for herself that she felt negativity coming her way.
“When I stood for myself, it wasn’t quite taken quite the same way,” she said Friday. “So then it stopped being easy to do that, to speak my truth. Then I just shut the hell up as much as I could for a long time, and I pretty much just ran away. So I love you so much for speaking to my strength, but I wasn’t.”
Heigl continued, “I think sometimes I was, but I was also sometimes just deeply insecure and afraid that all those opinions that had so quickly shifted were true? That those opinions meant more than my own opinion of myself. And it took me ’til about 40 to really stop apologizing, to stop beating myself up about it, to stop regretting the choices and decisions I’d made in the things I’d said, and kind of just learn and move forward.”
Much like Heigl had a dustup for speaking out on her popular show, Doherty also earned criticism for speaking out while on “Charmed.” She shared her experience about feeling silenced while trying to speak out.
“They really liked women to know their place,” Doherty agreed. “Like, I was told to shut up and get on my mark multiple times by somebody at Aaron Spellings Company. And I’d be like, wait, what? You don’t pay me enough to do that. If you want me to be completely quiet and not have an opinion, you have to pay me a lot more money. So I feel better about going to work, right, otherwise I need to have an opinion. I need to have a say.”
Heigl ultimately asked to be released from her “Grey’s Anatomy” contract in Season 6, while Doherty was fired from “Charmed” after Season 3.
Earlier this week, Doherty gave a health update about remaining hopeful despite her Stage 4 cancer diagnosis.
“I got to say that there is some positivity there, and the positivity is that because my molecular structure of my cancer cells changed recently, it means that there’s a lot more protocols for me to try,” Doherty explained on Sunday. “So, you know, for the first time in a couple of months, probably, I feel hopeful because there are so many more protocols now, whereas before I was hopeful, but I was still getting prepared. Now I’m like, oh, I don’t need to be prepared. I need to go on a vacation. I need to go on a boat again and explore places.”
