Posted in: Paramount+, streaming, TV | Tagged: ABC, boy meets world, Maxim, melissa joan hart, Pod Meets World, sabrina the teenage witch, Warner Bros

Sabrina Star Melissa Joan Hart Nearly Fired Over Maxim Photo Shoot

Melissa Joan Hart reflects on "the worst day of my life" when she was nearly fired from Sabrina the Teenage Witch over her Maxim photo shoot.

In case you need another reminder of the double standards between men and women in Hollywood, you can ask actress Melissa Joan Hart, who hit sitcom gold not once but twice. First was the Nickelodeon series Clarissa Explains It All, and later, her ABC '90s series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, playing the title characters. She joined contemporaries from ABC's Boy Meets World cast in their podcast called Pod Meets World (via Entertainment Weekly), speaking to hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong, reflecting on the time she almost got sued and fired from Warner Bros series due to her involvement in a Maxim photo shoot.

How Melissa Joan Hart Almost Lost Sabrina the Teenage Witch

Hart remembered the time posing with pop star Britney Spears, who also had a track record as a cautionary tale about what fame can do to someone, at her 1999 teen rom-com Drive Me Crazy. "If you look at my eyes, I'd been crying all evening." The reason was, in part, was she found out she could be losing her job due to her magazine shoot calling the potential news "the worst day of my life." The evening started with Hart admitting she was moving on from a relationship and had been up since 4 a.m. doing press. When she arrived at the premiere, she wasn't allowed to leave the car until Spears arrived. "I had to wait on the red carpet," Hart said. "They wanted me to wait in my car for, like, an hour for Britney to show up so we could do photos together. And I was like, 'Can I just go, start doing the press?' But nope, 'You've got to wait for Britney.'" The actress admitted she was to play the "vivacious, big-breasted one that's murdered" at the beginning of Scary Movie, which the part eventually went to Carmen Electra.

After Hart got the news she was dropped from the comedy horror spoof, she was told to go to Planet Hollywood after-party. "While I'm at the party, my lawyer shows up and goes, 'You did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine?'" she 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.' 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."

The tagline for the Maxim issue read "Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch," which was the basis of being in violation of her Archie Comics contract that stated she "would never play the character naked." Despite splitting hairs over what is "naked," Hart wrote an apology letter and subsequently cleared. The actress appeared in all 163 episodes of the Jonathan Schmock and Nell Scovell sitcom that ran for seven seasons across ABC & the WB and also starred Caroline Rhea, Beth Broderick, Nick Bakay, and Nate Richert. Hart has done a mix of voiceover and live-action roles, including her recurring role in Nickelodeon's animated series The Casagrandes, ABC's The Goldbergs, and various Christmas-themed projects. She was even tied to a potential reboot of Clarissa Explains It All before Nickelodeon dropped it. the series is available to stream on Paramount+.

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