The 47-year-old actress discusses the incident during her appearance in the latest episode of a 'Boy Meets World' podcast, which is hosted by Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle.
- Aug 23, 2023
AceShowbiz - Melissa Joan Hart was almost kicked out of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" due to a magazine pictorial gig. The 47-year-old actress discussed the incident during an appearance in the latest episode of a "Boy Meets World" podcast hosted by Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong and Will Friedle.
Melissa, who portrayed Sabrina on the 1990s ABC sitcom, claimed that the network threatened to sue and fire her after she posed for the cover of Maxim. "While I'm at the party, my lawyer shows up and goes, 'You did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine? " she recalled. "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.' "
"So I get 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.' "
According to the network, Melissa breached her contract with Archie Comics, which owned the rights to the ABC series, because she had signed an agreement that she "would never play the character [of Sabrina] naked." In her defense, the star said, "So here they were thinking I'm in breach because I'm playing the character. No, that was supposed to be me promoting my movie, it wasn't supposed to be a character."
She went on to say, "I had no control over what they wrote on the cover." The cover line read, "Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch!" Melissa thankfully was able to keep her role as Sabrina after writing an apology for the mishap.
In her new interview, Melissa also credited the backlash against the Maxim cover for the success of her 1999 movie "Drive Me Crazy". "Can Melissa be sexy? She's 23-is she allowed to be sexy? What's going on here? Is it allowed? Is it OK? Why is she being fired from her show?" she said of the backlash. "It made for 'Drive Me Crazy' to come out and be a huge success."
