Melissa Joan Hart (New York, USA, 47 years old) was a star in the 1990s for her role on the series Sabrina, Things of Witches, in which she put herself in the shoes of a teenage witch who is learning must In seven seasons (aired between 1996 and 2003), he manages his magical powers with the help of his two aunts. It was the best moment of his career, but there was one day when his whole world collapsed. It was September 28, 1999. Within 24 hours, she was nearly fired from the role that made her famous, lost her role in scary movies driving to the airport set, and broke up with her boyfriend. And it all happened on what was supposed to be a happy day: the New York premiere of his romantic comedy The Girl Next Door.
The actress recalled that chain of disasters on an episode of the Pod Meets World podcast. In the episode, hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong share a photo of Melissa Joan Hart and Britney Spears posing on the red carpet at the premiere of The Girl Next Door. “If you look into my eyes [en la foto]”I cried all night,” the actress recalls.
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That day was bad from the start, he says. She was planning to break up with her then-boyfriend, who was also in the film and had been up since 4 a.m. promoting the film. Arriving at the premiere, she had to wait an hour in the car for Britney Spears to arrive so the two could appear together in front of the media. When the red carpet finally wrapped and the movie had barely started, Melissa Joan Hart didn’t even have time to enjoy the event. She was immediately taken to the airport because she had to fly to Vancouver (Canada), where the black humor film “Scary Movie” was being shot, in which she was supposed to play, in her words, “a lively, big-breasted girl who is murdered in the beginning or so. But the trip to the airport didn’t go as expected: “I was put in a limousine after I just broke up with my boyfriend while we were at the premiere, I was crying and upset.” And midway through the journey another one arrived bad news: a phone call telling her that she had lost that role (which Carmen Electra would end up playing).
Britney Spears and Melissa Joan Hart at the premiere of The Girl Next Door. Ron Galella, Ltd. (Ron Galella Collection/Getty)
Discouraged, Joan Hart returned to attend the party at New York’s Planet Hollywood after the premiere of The Girl Next Door, where more bad news awaited her. There she learned that the possibility of her being fired from her series “Sabrina, Witch Things” was being considered. “My lawyer came and asked me, ‘Did you do a photo shoot for Maxim magazine?’ recalls the interpreter in the Pod Meets World interview. “I said yes, and he said, ‘Well, they’ve filed a lawsuit against you and you’re going to be fired from the show, so don’t talk to the press.’ Don’t do anything.” He later received an accusing phone call from his mother, who was his producer. “My mother asked me, ‘What did you do?’ And I thought, “I don’t know what my publicist told me when we were filming. I did a photo shoot for Maxim! “Here’s Maxim, of course you’re going to wear underwear,” says the former teen star. With this photo shoot , in which she was seen covered only with a sheet and wearing a black thong, Melissa Joan Hart had allegedly breached her contract with Archie Comics – the publisher that published the comics the ABC series was based on – which allowed her this prohibited plays “the figure of the naked Sabrina”.
The photos ended up on the cover of the magazine, along with the caption: “Sabrina: Your Favorite Witch Without a Stitch” (similar to Sabrina: Your Favorite Witch Without a Stitch, in Spanish). In this way, the publication connected her to her character, not to her person, and that was the problem, she explains today. “They thought I was breaking the contract for playing the character. No, it should be me promoting my film. [La chica de al lado]. It shouldn’t be a character. I had no control over what they wrote on the cover. In the end, and after a few weeks of agony remembering how she cried at her father’s husband, everything was settled because, according to Hart, the publication contained no valid argument and she “couldn’t control what the medium put into it.” “. . “The Cover”. Of course, he had to write a letter apologizing for that cover — although he didn’t elaborate on who he’d sent it to. 24 hour nightmare that at least didn’t affect his livelihood.