March 25, 2026, 10:48 a.m. ET
Sarah Michelle Gellar says she has “no regrets” in her friendship with late actress Shannen Doherty.
The onetime lead of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” said in a new interview with People that she and Doherty, a fellow teen star who died in July 2024, “didn’t waste the time we had.” Doherty, who rose to fame starring as Brenda in “Beverly Hills 90210,” died at age 53 after a years-long public battle with breast cancer.
“I made sure that I would never have any regrets with Shannen, and I think we did a really good job of it. I don’t think we have any,” Gellar told People.
The “Cruel Intentions” actress, 48, went on to say that the “one thing” Doherty wanted to do together that they didn’t get around to was “a big world trip to Italy.” She added, though, that the late actress “got to go, which is all that matters…I couldn’t go at the time.”
“We didn’t waste the time we had,” Gellar told People. “And if she said, ‘Hey, I have an idea for a crazy adventure.’ I’d be like, ‘Okay, let’s go do it.'”
“Look, everybody loses people in life, and a lot of times it’s not fair,” she continued. “Yes, mine’s maybe been on a bigger scale because you’ve all borne witness to it. And you learn those things — you learn that time is fleeting, you learn to take advantage of the time you have. Especially because the world moves so quickly now. We can stop and miss those moments.”
Gellar and Doherty shared a decadeslong bond, both ascending to starlet status in the ’90s, and outgrowing their teen icon-dom together.
In a post to Instagram at the time of Doherty’s death, Gellar paid tribute to their “30 years of friendship,” writing that “it only hurts this much because, there was so much love.”
Sharing several shots of her with Doherty over the years, Gellar asked fans to donate to their favorite animal charity to honor the late actress and her love for pets. “I know that would make our girl happy (and illicit that deep throaty laugh we all loved),” she wrote.
