Shannen Doherty’s ex-husband Kurt Iswarienko is challenging the divorce settlement both signed as she was dying of breast cancer in mid-2024, amid allegations that he owes her estate money.
Her estate’s attorneys and Christopher Cortazzo, trustee of the Shannen Doherty Family Trust, filed court documents in November 2025 alleging Iswarienko was not fulfilling financial and other obligations he had agreed to, People reported at the time.
Now, Doherty’s 51-year-old photographer ex is claiming the divorce settlement she signed on July 12, 2024, and he signed on July 13, the day she died, was brought in the wrong court, People reported. This means the court has no jurisdiction when it comes to enforcement, he said in legal documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last Wednesday and obtained by People.
Neither Cortazzo nor Doherty’s attorneys have legal standing to go after the money, Iswarienko maintained.
Iswarienko was supposed to sell the late actress’s $1.5 million home in Dripping Springs, about 25 miles west of Austin, and split it 50-50 with her estate. But he “has refused to list” it, her attorneys alleged in November. He is apparently living there instead, as indicated by his attorney, who withdrew from the case last September and listed the home as his ex-client’s latest known address.
He was also supposed to share half the proceeds from the $100,000 sale of a Mooney M-20 airplane with her estate within five business days after the deal closed in August 2024, but has yet to pony up, the attorneys said. In addition, he missed a September 2024 deadline to turn over personal property of Doherty’s, such as photos, that is also enshrined in the settlement, People reported.
Doherty and Iswarienko married in October 2011, and she was first diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2015. She announced she was in remission in 2017, but the disease returned in 2020 as Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and began spreading as treatments became a routine part of Doherty’s daily life.
Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Shannen Doherty and Kurt Iswarienko in 2008. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
By 2023 it had spread to her brain, then her bones. Doherty filed for divorce from Iswarienko in April 2023 after learning — just before going under for cancer-related brain surgery — that he had been cheating, she revealed. Doherty was still being treated in early 2024 amid her divorce battle, and in June that year she accused Iswarienko of dragging out the proceedings to avoid paying spousal support.
She waived the spousal support a few weeks later, leading to the settlement, which she signed July 12, 2024, the day before she died. Iswarienko signed the papers on Saturday July 13, the same day Doherty died. A family law judge signed off on the divorce judgment the following Monday, finalizing it two days after her death and saving it from landing in probate court.
With News Wire Services
