Melissa Joan Hart Reveals She Was Almost Fired From ‘Sabrina’ Over Sexy Maxim Shoot

Sabrina the Teenage Witch star Melissa Joan Hart has revealed she was nearly fired from the hit ABC/The WB sitcom after posing for a Maxim photo shoot.

Hart recalled one of the “worst days” of her life while on a recent episode of the Pod Meets World podcast, where she talked with hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong about the New York premiere of the 1999 rom-com Drive Me Crazy, named after the Britney Spears track that featured on the film’s soundtrack.

When the hosts showed Hart a photo from the premiere of her alongside Spears, the former sitcom star said, “If you look at my eyes [in the photo], I’d been crying all day.”

Hart explained that she’d broken up with her boyfriend that same day and had been doing press since 4 am. Then, when she arrived at the premiere, she was told she had to wait in the limo until Spears arrived so that they could take photos together.

After the red carpet was over and the film began, Hart left for the airport so she could travel to Vancouver to film her part in the horror parody film Scary Movie. “I was supposed to be the opening, vivacious, big-breasted one that’s like murdered or something in the beginning,” she shared.

However, on her way to the airport, Hart received a call telling her that she’d been dropped from the movie. She was then instructed to attend an after-party at Planet Hollywood instead, where the bad news continued to pile up.

Melissa Joan Hart reveals she was nearly fired from ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ after doing revealing Maxim photoshoot with the tagline:

“Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch!” pic.twitter.com/VNcEFHDGcf

— Pop Base (@PopBase) August 22, 2023

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

Her mother, who was her producer at the time, then called her, saying, ‘”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.'”

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Hart claimed that the issue arose over a line on the Maxim front cover that read, “Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch.” She was told this was a violation of her Archie Comics contract, which didn’t allow her to “play the character naked.”

That night, Hart said she broke down in her father’s arms. “I’m crying even harder because my daddy’s hugging me, I’m being fired from my show, I was just fired from the movie, I just broke up with my boyfriend,” she stated.

Eventually, the matter was cleared up. “They had no ground to stand on… I had no control over what they wrote on the cover,” Hart continued, adding that the issue was later resolved. She also said she wrote an apology letter.