Melissa Joan Hart was almost fired from Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Melissa Joan Hart was almost fired from 'Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.'
The 45-year-old actress was playing the title character in the family sitcom when a naked photoshoot to promote a different project she was involved in almost cost her her starring role.
She said: "We were premiering 'Drive Me Crazy in New York and my lawyer comes up to me on the red carpet and basically is like 'Don't talk to the press. You're being fired from your show.'"
At the time, Melissa was 23 years old and had agreed to do the racy shoot for magazine Maxim for a film separate to the 'Sabrina' franchise, but crossed wires landed the actress in hot water.
Speaking on a new episode of E!'s documentary series 'True Hollywood Story', she explained: "We had signed a very clear contract with them that I would never play the character naked. To never be sexy as Sabrina. I did the photoshoot to promote 'Drive Me Crazy' but Maxim actually put Sabrina on the cover. It said 'Sabrina, your favourite witch without a stitch'. I don't know why Maxim chose to do that but Archie Comics tried to get me kicked off the show or sue me based on the fact that I was playing Sabrina in a sassy way."
The documentary episode - which explores the 1990s TGIF sitcom line up - claimed that it was eventually agreed that the sitcom character would mature and ran for a further three seasons.
But Melissa - who went on to star in 'Melissa and Joey' - was quick to label the whole experience as "dire".
She said: "What felt so dire about that whole thing was that I was gonna be kicked off my show, although I wasn't necessarily the best example of somebody who was living by the rules."
