How Melissa Joan Hart Was Nearly Fired From Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Melissa Joan Hart starred in hit supernatural sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch for seven seasons, from 1996 to 2003. She almost got fired during her run, however, as the actress recently revealed.

On the Pod Meets World podcast, Hart recounts what she calls one of the worst days of her life. It started with her axing from 2000 horror parody Scary Movie. “I was supposed to be the opening, vivacious, big-breasted one that’s like murdered or something in the beginning,” she says.

But, on the way to the airport after filming in Vancouver, Hart gets a phone call to say she’s been fired. So she heads to Planet Hollywood, where her life gets even worse.

“My lawyer shows up and goes, ‘You did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine?' I’m like: ‘Yes, I did.’ They’re like, ‘Well, you’re being sued and fired from your show, so don’t talk to the press, don’t do anything.'”

Next, she gets a “phone call on my cellphone from my mother, my producer, who was like, ‘What did you do?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, whatever my publicist told me to do at the photo shoot. Like, I did a photo shoot for Maxim! It’s Maxim, of course you’re gonna be in your underwear.'”

Show bosses said Hart was in violation of her contract due to the lewd photographs and accompanying article, especially the cover, but she won in the end by arguing she “had no control over what they wrote on the cover.”

Today, Hart’s next project is a rumored Clarissa Explains It All reboot. With the news of Paramount reviving Frasier, stranger things have happened.