What to Know
Melissa Joan Hart got her start in the entertainment industry at a young age, and rose to fame through her roles in Clarissa Explains It All and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. But a sexy photoshoot she did for Maxim magazine nearly cost her the role on Sabrina the Teenage Witch in 1999. She addressed the controversy during a recent interview with Betches, and revealed that she actually lost two roles in one day: one because her photoshoot was too sexy, and another because her boobs weren’t big enough, apparently.
The day of the “Drive Me Crazy” premiere was one of the worst days of her life.
In a Betches video, Melissa was shown a photo from the night of the Drive Me Crazy premiere in New York. At the time, Melissa was 23 years old. From the photo, you can tell that something was wrong with her that day, she admitted. And it was actually because several things that happened all at once.
“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,” she said. She explained that she and Britney Spears “did the press together” and then went inside to watch the film.
Melissa, however, had other plans that night. “I was actually flying to Vancouver to shoot the movie Scary Movie,” she explained. “I was supposed to be the small part in the beginning…but they decided when I did the fitting that I didn’t have big enough boobs for that part.” While she was on the way to the airport, she received a call telling her she was “fired from the movie.”
Then she was “fired” again shortly after.
After she returned to the premiere, her lawyer told her that she was “fired” from Sabrina the Teenage Witch because of her sexy Maxim magazine cover. “Then I really start crying,” she said. “…It was just a dramatic night.”
It’s not the first time Melissa has talked about this particular issue. During an episode of the Pod Meets World podcast, Melissa said her lawyer told her she was “being sued and fired” because of the photoshoot. She also recalled receiving a call from her mom (also her producer) that same night. “[She] was like, ‘What did you do?'” Melissa said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know, whatever my publicist told me to do at the photoshoot. Like I did a photoshoot for Maxim! It’s Maxim, of course you’re gonna be in your underwear.”
The racy cover was an issue because her Archie Comics contract said she couldn’t ever portray the character Sabrina while naked. Technically, Melissa appeared on the cover of Maxim as herself, not as her character on the show. But the magazine referenced the sitcom in its cover line, which read, “Sabrina: Your Favorite Witch Without a Stitch!”
Ultimately, Melissa was able to keep her job.
On the podcast, Sabrina explained that she wrote an apology letter because of the scandal. In the end, she was able to keep her role on Sabrina the Teenage Witch because “they had no ground to stand on.” The fact that the magazine chose to reference Sabrina on the cover wasn’t her fault.
Now, in 2025, people find it hard to believe that someone could be fired from their TV role just for doing a cover for Maxim. Reacting to the story on TikTok, one fan wrote, “wow! yet we have other celebrities who have done much [worse] and are doing children’s programming.” But others were more hung up on the reason why she got fired from the Scary Movie role. Someone else commeted, “She got fired for not having big enough boobs?!? 😭”
The fact that both could happen on the same day made it even more shocking. As one person put it, “Not sexy enough = gets fired. Too sexy = gets fired.” Can women ever win?
