‘Charmed’ Behind-the-Scenes Drama: A Timeline of the Biggest Cast Feuds Over the Years
For over two decades, drama has erupted between the stars of ‘Charmed’: Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, Shannen Doherty, and Rose McGowan.
Charmed premiered over 25 years ago on October 7, 1998. The show began with Alyssa Milano, 51, Holly Marie Combs, 50, and Shannen Doherty, 52, as the iconic Halliwell sisters who discover they’re extremely powerful witches. Rose McGowan, 50, joined the show after Shannen’s departure.
Throughout the show’s 8-season run, there was plenty of drama both onscreen and offscreen. Charmed may have aired its last episode in 2006, but fans are still hearing about the drama between its co-stars to this day. Most recently, Alyssa denied that she was behind Shannen’s firing from the show, which Shannen had an emotional response to. Let’s look back at how the feuds between the stars of Charmed developed over time:
2001: Shannen Doherty Suddenly Leaves the Show
Shannen’s character, Prue Halliwell, died in the season 3 finale called “All Hell Breaks Loose,” which is the perfect analogy of what actually happened in real life after Shannen’s departure. The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum did not hide her dissatisfaction in interviews after her exit, telling Entertainment Tonight in 2001, “I want to work with actors who really, really care and that want to be there every single day. I don’t want to work with people who b-tch about their job and complain about it and say that they hate it or anything else.”
At the time, there were reports that Shannen and Alyssa weren’t exactly getting along. Before season 4 premiered, Alyssa acknowledged this tension by telling Entertainment Weekly, “I think it’s hard when you put…two very different people together. I’m very laid-back and passive…[Shannen’s] got a lot of energy, she’s very headstrong, she wants to get the job done…I think it’s unfortunate that she left, and that she needed to bad-mouth everyone involved and the audience. She sounds really angry. I just hope I didn’t contribute to that anger.”
Meanwhile, in the same interview, Holly’s response to Shannen’s send-off was less tinged with drama. After all, the two had already been friends before filming Charmed together. “It was done very poorly, in my opinion,” Holly admitted, referring to the tragic death of Shannen’s character at the end of season 3. She added, ”We should have had an opportunity to have her character, Prue, make a graceful exit and have our story writers properly plan for that.”
2013: Alyssa Milano Compares the Set of ‘Charmed’ to a High School
Twelve years later, fans were given more answers as to what exactly happened between Alyssa and Shannen. On Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2013, Alyssa admitted that they “never really found out what happened” in regards to Shannen’s exit from the show, but did say this: “I can tell you that we were on the air with her for three years, and there were definitely some rough days.”
She went into further detail: “I never went to a high school because I was tutored on the set, but I imagine it would have been a lot like that. Holly and Shannen were best friends for like 10 years before the show started, so it was very much sort of like high school. I would hope that in our thirties it wouldn’t be like that anymore.” Holly was apparently tuning in because she clapped back on Twitter! “I went to high school. It was a very important job to me and always will be,” the actress for the middle Halliwell sister wrote.
However, Alyssa now appears to be on good terms with Shannen, and even wrote that she’s holding her former co-star and rival “tight in [her] heart” after Shannen’s cancer returned in early 2020.
2017: A New Feud Forms in Wake of the #MeToo Movement
While Alyssa was known for her feud with Shannen, by the late 2010s, her feud with a different co-star — Rose — came to center stage. Rose played Alyssa’s half-sister, Paige Matthews, and served as Shannen’s replacement on Charmed between 2001 and 2006. But in 2017, she infamously tweeted that Alyssa made her want to “vomit” after seeing her co-star still stand by Georgina Chapman, the wife of film producer Harvey Weinstein (whom Rose had accused of rape).
2018: Rose McGowan Calls Alyssa Milano a ‘Lie’
.@rosemcgowan on former co-star Alyssa Milano's #MeToo work: 'She's a lie.' But Milano tells @ABC News' Nightline, "I am and always have been completely supportive of Rose." Tonight on Nightline with @JujuChangABC pic.twitter.com/2wZt2jXdaE
— Nightline (@Nightline) February 1, 2018
Rose further condemned Alyssa amid the #MeTooMovement, despite both stars being the main celebrity faces behind the exposure of Hollywood’s alleged sexual assault predators. Rose was wary of Alyssa’s advocacy and explained why in a 2018 interview with Nightline that went viral. “I don’t like her,” Rose told Nightline host JuJu Chang. She then referenced Alyssa’s husband Dave Bugliari, who used to be an agent for the Creative Arts Agency (CAA): “Do you think I don’t know these people? Do the math. Who’s behind Time’s Up? CAA. Where do they meet? CAA? Who needs good PR? CAA. Who are part of the pimp problem? CAA.”
2020: Alyssa Milano Reignites Feud With Rose McGowan
A thread of all the things the Democratic Party has done to make the world a better place.
Let’s start here: 1920
19TH AMENDMENT: WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE
Under the leadership of Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, the U.S. Constitution was amended to grant women the right to vote. pic.twitter.com/EK60QJm2ia— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) August 21, 2020
After the 2020 Democratic National Convention wrapped up, Rose criticized the political party by tweeting in Aug. 2020, “What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING? Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING. Why did people vote [Donald] Trump? Because of you mother**kers.”
Alyssa quickly snapped back with a Twitter thread, pointing out all of the Democratic Party’s accomplishments since 1920. The clapback didn’t come out of nowhere, though, since Rose had already called out Alyssa’s support of Joe Biden earlier that year, despite the Democratic presidential nominee facing and denying a sexual assault allegation from his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade.
This ignited a spark in Rose, who had multiple bones to pick with Alyssa. She accused her co-star of stealing the #metoo saying from activist Tarana Burke (who started the original movement in 2006), and also accused Alyssa of creating a “toxic” environment on the Charmed set.
“You stole #metoo (a brilliant communication tool, not a movement) from Tarana. You co-opted my movement, the Cultural Reset, for fame, jealous of me for outing my rapist,” she tweeted. “You made 250k per week on Charmed…You threw a fit in front of the crew, yelling, ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this sh*t!’ Appalling behavior on the daily. I cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF. Now, get off my coattails you f**king fraud.” Rose later revealed that Alyssa had blocked her on Twitter, making their Twitter war come to a standstill.
Alyssa spoke about how upset she was about the feud during an October 2020 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show. “Rose has lashed out on social media a few times against me and my husband [Dave Bugliari]. I don’t know what to say, it makes me really sad. Then I think, hurt people hurt people. I wish her well and I’ll leave it at that and hope that she heals,” she said. “It’s very sad and it hurts.”
2021: Alyssa Milano Is ‘Cordial’ With Shannen Doherty
Alyssa was asked where she and Shannen stood about a year after saying that their feud was “very sad” in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “I would say we are cordial,” she said. “I could take responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had. I think a lot of our struggle came from feeling that I was in competition rather than it being that sisterhood that the show was so much about. And I have some guilt about my part in that.”
2023: Shannen Doherty Accuses Alyssa Milano of Creating ‘Weird Divide’
In December 2023, Shannen spoke about some of the tension between her and Alyssa on her Let’s Be Clear podcast. Holly was the guest, and Shannen accused Alyssa of creating a “weird divide” between them. “I was, like, being told I couldn’t even get in. Alyssa and her mom were blocking people from seeing you, and at the time, you didn’t know. I remember you texted me, ‘Dude are you going to come and see me?’” Shannen told her, while speaking about some of Holly’s health issues.
Shannen continued and spoke about her feelings in that instance. “I also felt my anger at the situation of not being allowed to come see you and how a sort of family had swooped in,” she said. “[It] caused a weird divide between the two of us that continued throughout season 2. I think I cried every single night.”
On that same podcast, Holly claimed that Alyssa had Shannen fired from the show. She said that she went to a producer to ask what had happened. “He said, ‘We didn’t mean to — but we’ve been backed into this corner — we’re basically in this position where it’s one or the other,’” she said. “‘We were told [by Alyssa] it’s her or [Shannen] and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment.’”
2024: Alyssa Denies She Got Shannen Fired
In February 2024, Alyssa denied that she orchestrated Shannen’s firing from the show at the Who’s the Boss? panel at MegaCon Orlando. “I did not have the power to get anyone fired,” she added in an Instagram post.
However, Shannen stood by her claims that Alyssa got her fired from the series during a separate panel at MegaCon Orlando. Shannen got emotional as she explained that she and Holly “simply told the truth” regarding what they said about Alyssa on the podcast in December. “There is no revisionist history happening in the truth that I know we told,” she said. “There is no lateness to set, there is no mediator for months on end. I recall the facts as if I was still living in them.”
Holly and Rose backed up Shannen at the panel. Holly did the same in an Instagram post, where she claimed that Alyssa did indeed have “the power” to get Shannen fired. “She had the power to stop the process at any time. She had the power to not talk to the mediator/therapist brought on to protect profits,” Holly said.