Shannen Doherty claims ex is delaying divorce in ‘hopes that I die’

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Shannen Doherty is accusing her estranged husband, Kurt Iswarienko, of stalling their divorce proceedings in a bid to avoid paying spousal support.

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Per court docs obtained by Fox News Digital, Doherty, who is battling stage 4 cancer, claims Iswarienko is drawing things out in hopes that the Beverly Hills, 90210 alum dies before he has to pay her.

“It is simply not right that Kurt be permitted to prolong our divorce in hopes that I die before he is required to pay me while he continues to live his life and shirk his responsibilities to his dying wife of more than 11 years,” Doherty, 53, wrote in a Friday filing obtained by Fox News.

“Our assets are neither difficult to characterize nor divide,” she continued in the court documents filed in Los Angeles on Friday. “Our divorce should not be complicated. It is abundantly clear to me that Kurt is intentionally delaying settlement in hopes that I will not survive the divorce proceedings.”

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In a statement to PEOPLE, Iswarienko’s lawyer disputed this claim, saying, “Kurt is not ‘simply wait(ing) for Shannen to die.’ He wants the best for Shannen and he wants both of them to be able to put this case behind them and move forward.”

In her filing, Doherty is demanding $15,434 a month in spousal support from Iswarienko, claiming she will be losing her SAG health benefits because she is no longer working and her Charmed residuals have decreased.

“Kurt’s average annual earnings for the last three years of marriage was $672,916,” Doherty claimed in the documents. “My average annual earnings for the last three years of marriage was $259,708.”

She continued, “Although Kurt’s income is substantially more than mine, he has not made any temporary spousal support payments and has made no contributions to my attorneys’ or accounting fees and costs since the time our divorce action was filed.” 

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Per PEOPLE, in her court filing, Doherty is also accusing Iswarienko of living an extravagant lifestyle while she struggles to take care of herself.

“Kurt has been utilizing the airplane, spending thousands of dollars at medical spas, jewelry stores, Gucci, and on flights… while simultaneously claiming he has insufficient funds with which to support me,” her filing states. 

So far in 2024, Doherty has suffered a massive drop in income, earning just over $25,000 since the beginning of the year.

Meanwhile, her legal fees continue to mount as she says she owes her lawyers nearly $160,000.

Doherty was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, before announcing that she had gone into remission two years later. But in 2020, Doherty broke the news the cancer had returned and was stage 4.

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Last summer, she revealed that the cancer had also spread to her brain as she tearfully posted a video of herself going through “the process of getting fitted for the mask which you wear during radiation.”

The following December, Doherty shared that her 11-year marriage to Iswarienko ended because of his Infidelity.

On the debut episode of her iHeart Radio podcast, Let’s Be Clear with Shannen Doherty, the Mallrats star lifted the lid on her surprise split from the photographer in April 2023, telling listeners she found out he had been unfaithful “for two years” just before she went under the knife to remove a brain tumour.

“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. “I couldn’t go into that surgery with him there. I felt so betrayed.”

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Doherty said she was incredibly afraid to undergo the procedure, calling it “the most frightening thing I have ever been through in my entire life.”

“I didn’t think I was going to make it. I was positive that I was gonna die,” she said.

The revelation of his unfaithfulness left her feeling “incredibly unloved” by her third husband, who she had been with for over a decade.

“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 said.

The Charmed star said she became “obsessed” with finding out why Iswarienko was romancing another woman behind her back.

“If you share 14 years together and you cheated, doesn’t that person deserve the absolute truth regardless of how much that hurts them? If they’re the ones asking for it, if they’re the ones saying, ‘Listen, I get it, I may cry, I may get angry, and this may really suck to hear, but I need to hear it because I need closure and this is how I get my closure.’ So I had a lot of months of trying to figure out what I was going to do,” she said.

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Doherty was previously married to Ashley Hamilton from 1993 to 1994, and Rick Salomon from 2002 to 2003.

Even though Iswarienko’s deception shattered her, the actress said she struggled with the decision to file for divorce, and added that she spoke with the “girlfriend of two years that he cheated on me with.”

But she maintained she wasn’t to blame for their split.

“I do not take responsibility for the demise of our marriage, I take responsibility for some of the issues in our marriage,” she explained. “I take responsibility not only because of how I was but because of how cancer impacted my marriage and how it impacted him the second time around.”

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