In a candid revelation on the Pod Meets World podcast, Melissa Joan Hart, best known for her role as Sabrina Spellman in “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” disclosed a shocking twist in her career. It turns out that a photoshoot for Maxim magazine nearly cost her the iconic role that brought her fame, Cosmopolitan reports.
Recalling the fateful incident, Melissa shared, “While I’m at my party that’s at Planet Hollywood, some of my clothes were being dedicated there, my lawyer shows up and goes, ‘You did a photoshoot for Maxim magazine? You’re being sued and fired from your show, so don’t talk to the press, don’t do anything.'”
The predicament arose because Maxim used the name “Sabrina” on the cover, despite Melissa’s intentions being purely promotional for her movie “Drive Me Crazy.” She explained, “The magazine wrote, ‘Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch.’ So in my contract, it said I would never play the character naked. So here they were thinking I was in breach because I’m playing the character…I had no control over what they wrote on the cover.”
This misunderstanding led to weeks of legal wrangling. Fortunately for Melissa, her lawyers determined that the producers “had no leg to stand on” because they couldn’t control the headlines written about her.
Smoothing It Out
Melissa eventually penned an apology letter to resolve the situation, and she reflected on the silver lining, stating, “The silver lining here is that for weeks, the top news: ‘Can Melissa be sexy’? Why is she being fired from her TV show?’ And all this drama. But it made for Drive Me Crazy to come out and be a huge success. It was insane.”
Melissa Joan Hart’s portrayal of Sabrina Spellman in the ABC series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” remains one of her most iconic roles, spanning seven seasons from 1996 to 2003.
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