Great sadness

Tori Spelling: Knew immediately that Shannen was dead

Jennie Garth, Shannen Doherty and Tori Spelling(Bild: Viennareport/www.viennareport.at)

Tori Spelling knew her best friend Shannen Doherty had died after her phone "kept ringing" at 7am.

The 51-year-old actress is struggling to cope with her grief over the death of her former "Beverly Hills, 90210" co-star Shannen Doherty, who died on July 13 at the age of 53.

"It was shocking"
In her "misSPELLING" podcast, she shared that her phone lit up while she was sleeping with her two children on Sunday, July 14: "It kept going off. I looked at the time and it was 7am and I knew straight away. I thought: 'Oh my God. Someone has died, someone important has died.' And I used that moment to not go on social media ... when I pulled up Google, I saw that Shannen had died on Saturday night, and it was shocking."

She was an inspiration to others
She added: "For anyone in the world who's been through anything, whether it's cancer or any other illness or ailment or a hard time they've been through ... they've really looked up to her for inspiration and strength to keep going in the moments when they felt like they couldn't - and I could see that personally. I could see that in person throughout their lives, and that's beautiful."

Tori also recalled the first time she met Shannen at the age of 15 while filming the pilot of "Beverly Hills, 90210" "I think Shannen and Brian (Austin Greene - who played David Silver on the show) were the first people I met on set, and they were really, really nice," Spelling said.