NY Post August 6th 2004
By Cindy Adams.

Fri Aug 06, 1:49 AM ET

SHANNEN Doherty — in jeans, white silk beaded shell, orange spike sandals, long, long hair — came by for lunch. Size 2, she dissed the veggies and went right for the meatloaf. Lord knows I'm not one to notice how much a person in my home eats or anything, but she had two pieces.

Never having met Shannen before, I was totally depressed at — with glaring sunshine streaming down — how gorgeous she is. Not a line, zit or hair on that face. Now 33, hurt career-wise by being a diva in her "90210" days, she says: "I used to get scared and worry if parts would still come my way afterwards. Look, I was just 18 then. I'd been raised strong and to believe in myself by parents I adore, so I thought my opinions would be valued and respected. Don't have to follow them but at last hear them.

"Well, I was wrong. Maybe it was all fanned to get p.r. for the show, I don't know. Today Julia, Angelina, Nicole, Gwyneth, strong women, finally paved the way."

OK, so what's coming up for her? A couple of TV shows. One's a "funny, heartbreaking" series for which she's done the treatment. "I play a girl who's dating. Women will love it; men will wonder, am I really that big a jerk? It's the true hardships like, you trust him then find he's got a girlfriend. It's, for instance, picking the wrong guy — some stuff's from my own life. I'm a romantic who has a talent for picking really bad guys.

"I've learned from them all and only regret my first marriage. People wrote I'm again seeing my ex [the same Rick Solomon from Paris Hilton's porno video] but I'm not. We met at a party recently. I'm close to my ex-stepchildren, so we're friendly. I'm seeing someone else lately. The truth is, it's hard to date me because of the gossip.

"Mostly I'm passionate about my career. Next to my parents, it's what I care about most. I call my mother five times a day. I bought [my parents] a house near mine in Malibu. My father, my hero, had a stroke and lost his speech while I was on '90210.' I'd finish work, go straight to the hospital, sleep there overnight, come back to work. And nobody knew.

"What I want people to know now is, I was never a screaming mess on that set."