Melissa Joan Hart Was Fired From ‘Sabrina’ & ‘Scary Movie’ on the Same Day
What To Know
- Melissa Joan Hart recalled being fired from both Scary Movie and nearly from Sabrina the Teenage Witch on the same day in 1999.
- She lost the Scary Movie role because producers decided she didn’t fit the part, and was almost fired from Sabrina due to her Maxim magazine cover.
- Hart starred on Sabrina the Teenage Witch for seven seasons from 1996 to 2003.
Melissa Joan Hart recently recalled learning that she was fired from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Scary Movie on the same day.
In an Instagram video Betches shared via Instagram on December 9, Hart recounted one of the “worst days “of her professional life.
“This is at the premiere of Drive Me Crazy in New York,” she said of a photo of herself and Britney Spears from 1999. “If you look at my eyes, they’re very bloodshot. Because this was what I would consider, if you read my book, one of the worst days of my life at the time.”
Hart, 49, continued, “We did the press together, and then we went inside to watch the movie, but I was actually flying to Vancouver to shoot the movie Scary Movie.“
In the 2000 spoof film, Hart was reportedly cast to portray a parody of Drew Barrymore‘s character in Scream. “But they decided when I did the fitting that I didn’t have big enough boobs for that part,” she explained. Ultimately, Carmen Electra booked the role.
“So I’m driving to the airport — back in those days you had, like, the cell phone in the limo — and I got a call, and it’s like, ‘Turn around. Go back to your premiere, you’ve been fired from the movie,’” Hart detailed. “I was like, ‘All right, at least I get to hang out here.’ I had just been crying cause I left my family, so I was already crying.”
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Not long after she returned to the premiere, Hart received more bad news.
“I’m waiting for everyone to finish the movie and come on over. And when they get there, my lawyer meets up with me first and says, ‘Because of your cover of Maxim magazine, you’re being fired from your show,’” she said in the video. “So then I really start crying …It was just a dramatic night.”
Ultimately, Hart was not fired from Sabrina because, as she explained on the Pod Meets World podcast in August 2023, the show “had no ground to stand on.”
“Like, I did a photo shoot for Maxim! It’s Maxim, of course you’re gonna be in your underwear,’” she pointed out.
Hart starred on Sabrina the Teenage Witch for seven seasons from 1996 to 2003.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch, streaming on Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Tubi, and Pluto TV