Melissa Joan Hart revealed that she once was afraid that she would be fired from Sabrina: The Teenage Witch for posing topless on the cover of Maxim in 1999. The actress, 47, admitted that she got a terrifying phone call from her lawyer while attending a party for the movie Drive Me Crazy on an episode of Pod Meets World. She showed a photo with Britney Spears from the afterparty, where she’d been crying and opened up about her emotional day. “At the time, I thought this was like the worst day of my life,” she said.
Melissa said while at the afterparty, her attorney told her that the Maxim shoot would bring her time on the show to an end. “My lawyer shows up and goes, ‘You did a photoshoot for Maxim Magazine?’ 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,'” she recalled.
She then said her mom and producer called to ask what had happened, and she explained that she just did “Whatever my publicist told me to do at the photoshoot.” She said, “I did a photoshoot for Maxim! It’s Maxim! Of course, you’re going to be in your underwear.”
The Clarissa Explains It All actress said she started crying, and her dad met her after the party. Amid all the confusion, she said that he asked how she was doing. “He hugs me, and I’m crying even harder, because my daddy’s hugging. I’m being fired from my show. I was just fired from the movie [Scary Movie]. I just broke up with my boyfriend,” she said.
Ultimately though, the scare turned out to not be anything. Boy Meets World star Will Friedle asked if the incident happened as the show was ending, and Melissa said it wasn’t. “Nothing happened. Nothing came of it, but of course, in the moment, I didn’t know what was going on,” she said.
Obviously the show didn’t end, and Melissa went on to continue starring in Sabrina until the series’ finale in 2003. More recently, the show inspired the spin-off, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, from 2018 to 2020. The reboot featured Kiernan Shipka as Sabrina.