Melissa Joan Hart is opening up about nearly getting fired from her starring role in the 1990s ABC sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The 47-year-old actress shed light on the incident during an appearance on the latest episode of a Boy Meets World podcast hosted by three of the series’ cast members, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle.
In 1999, Hart parlayed her Sabrina success into a starring role in the teen comedy Drive Me Crazy. On the night of the movie’s premiere, Hart landed in hot water with ABC executives after they found out the then-23-year-old actress had posed for the cover of Maxim. While celebrating her new film at a party at Planet Hollywood, Hart learned she was being “sued and fired” from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
“While I’m at the party, my lawyer shows up and goes, ‘You did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine?” Hart 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.'”
She continued, “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.”
