Melissa Joan Hart reveals that she was nearly fired from Sabrina the Teenage Witch over a Maxim photo shoot.
Melissa Joan Hart revealed “the worst day of my life” while speaking on the Pod Meets World podcast, which involved breaking up with her boyfriend, being dropped from a movie, and almost being fired from Sabrina the Teenage Witch over a photo shoot for Maxim.
Pod Meets World hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong referenced a photo of Melissa Joan Hart posing with Britney Spears at the 1999 premiere of Drive Me Crazy. However, Hart explained that this was just the beginning of a miserable evening. “If you look at my eyes, I’d been crying all evening,” Hart said. “I was breaking up with a boy that night because I decided I no longer wanted a relationship with him.” She added that she had been “up since 4 am” doing press for the movie, and when she arrived at the premiere, she was forced to stay in her car for an hour until Britney Spears showed up so they could do photos together.
Melissa Joan Hart didn’t even get to see the movie as she had to fly out to Vancouver to film a part in Scary Movie. “I was supposed to be the opening, vivacious, big-breasted one that’s murdered or something in the beginning,” Hart explained. But before Hart could even get to the airport, she got a call saying that she had been dropped from the movie, so she headed to a Planet Hollywood after-party instead. “While I’m at the party, my lawyer shows up and goes, ‘You did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine?’” Hart said. “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.’“
Hart then received “a phone call on my cell phone 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. I did a photo shoot for Maxim! It’s Maxim, of course you’re gonna be in your underwear.” It turns out that all the fuss was over a line on the Maxim cover which read, “Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch.” This led to Hart being accused of violating her Archie Comics contract which forbid her from ever playing the character of Sabrina naked. As Melissa Joan Hart never had any control over what Maxim wrote on the cover, everything was resolved, but she added that she still had to write an apology letter.