Actor and singer Ashley Hamilton, the former husband of the late Shannen Doherty, landed in the hospital last Thursday following an apparent overdose. The 51-year-old son of actor George Hamilton and model Alana Stewart remains in stable condition and continues his recovery.
Details of the Incident
Sources confirm Hamilton suffered a medical emergency tied to an unidentified substance at an Airbnb property in the Los Angeles area. He has openly discussed his long battle with addiction, revealing he faced half a dozen arrests and attended 32 rehab programs by age 22.
Brief Marriage to Shannen Doherty
Hamilton and Doherty married in 1993 after just two weeks of dating—he was 19, she was 22. The union ended after five months. Doherty, then starring in Beverly Hills, 90210, later described the marriage as deeply troubled. In a January 2024 podcast appearance, she explained: “I was in a really horrible marriage, and there were things that were transpiring in that marriage that made it really hard for me to be on time for work.”
She added that fear of her husband buying drugs kept her from leaving the house, leading to set delays. “It wasn’t anybody’s responsibility but mine,” Doherty acknowledged, “but I sort of wish I would have been sat down and sort of looked at and said: ‘Listen, the end result is going to be this—you are going to get fired and none of us are willing to put up with it anymore.'”
Ongoing Addiction and Legal Issues
Hamilton’s substance use started in his teens amid struggles with anorexia and bulimia, which he managed with drugs and alcohol. Following his split from Doherty in 1994, he entered a short marriage with Playboy model Angie Everhart.
In a December interview, he recounted his turbulent youth: “two failed marriages, two failed careers, 32 rehabs, five overdoses, three flatlines, two comas, left side of my body paralyzed, brain surgery, spleen surgery of course, staph infection in the heart, gangrene of the arms, of course shootouts from drug deals gone bad and half a dozen arrests all by the age of 22.”
His father, George Hamilton, once teared up on their family reality show, telling him: “I am very proud of you. There are about four times that we almost lost you in your life.” Hamilton responded in a confessional: “I went through a hard time with drugs and alcohol, it was so stupid. I blew everything but I have a second chance and I am going to give it everything I have got.”
In August 2024, authorities arrested him for allegedly brandishing a pocket knife at a Beverly Hills hotel employee who asked him to leave after finding him asleep on a lobby sofa around 5 a.m.
Current Health Challenges
Hamilton also battles a rare mucosal HPV-related cancer, diagnosed last year. In a recent interview alongside a death doula, he shared that his nine-year-old daughter with ex-girlfriend Renee Karelian remains unaware of his condition. He noted submitting paperwork to a Swiss clinic for assisted suicide options, stating: “What I don’t wanna do is I don’t wanna die in a motel with a f***in’ needle in my neck and leave that stain on my daughter and leave my stain on people around me. That I don’t wanna do. As easy as that would be for me to do, I don’t wanna do that to people.”
He grew up partly as Rod Stewart’s stepson during his parents’ marriage from 1979 to 1984.
