During an appearance on the Pod Meets World podcast, Melissa Joan Hart revealed that she was almost fired from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" after she did a photo shoot for Maxim magazine. Hart recalled what she said was the "worst day of my life" after hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong showed a photo of Hart with Britney Spears at the 1999 premiere of "Drive Me Crazy." Following the event, Hart went straight to the airport to film "Scary Movie," her upcoming project at the time. But she soon received word that she had been fired from the production after producers "flipped out" over her posing in her underwear.
While attending the "Drive Me Crazy" premiere party, Hart received a phone call from her lawyer who asked her if she had done a photoshoot for Maxim. "I'm like, 'Yes, I did,'" Hart said. "They're like, 'Well, you're being sued and fired from your show. So don't talk to the press. Don't do anything.'" Hart explained that her publicist had told her to do the shoot and because it was for Maxim, "of course you're gonna be in your underwear."
Most of the uproar was centered on the magazine's cover line that read: "Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch." Hart said she was ultimately allowed to stay on the show after it was shown that production legally had "no ground to stand on."
"Nothing came of it," she said on the podcast. "But of course, in the moment, I didn't know what was going on."
