“Charmed” was a beloved series when it began airing in 1998, but for the cast, it seems like working on the show may have been more of a curse.
Shannen Doherty, Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs were the original stars of the show, but Doherty was written off at the end of the third season. Now, Combs is claiming that Milano was the reason why Doherty was let go.
On Doherty’s podcast, “Let’s Be Clear,” Combs said that after her co-star was fired, she called a meeting with a producer to figure out why. She claimed, “He said, ‘We didn’t mean to – but we’ve been backed into this corner – we’re basically in this position where it’s one or the other. We were told [by Alyssa] it’s her or [Shannen] and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment.'”
ALYSSA MILANO HAD SHANNEN DOHERTY FIRED FROM ‘CHARMED,’ CASTMATE HOLLY MARIE COMBS CLAIMS
Shannen Doherty starred on “Charmed” for three seasons with Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs. (Getty Images)
Combs recalled that she responded by saying, “This is not a show I wanted to do without Shannen. She didn’t want to do it without me. Therefore, I don’t want to do it without her and that should be fairly clear.”
Doherty said she couldn’t remember what might have made Milano take issue with her, and while Milano hasn’t addressed these recent claims, she did say in a 2021 interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” “You know, I could take responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had. I think a lot of our struggle came from feeling that I was in competition rather than it being that sisterhood that the show was so much about. And I have some guilt about my part in that.”
A rep for Milano did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
“Sex and the City”
Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall on the set of “Sex In The City: The Movie” in New York City on Sept. 21, 2007. (James Devaney/WireImage)
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis, “Sex and the City” was a show largely about the friendships between four characters, but in real life, some of the cast members weren’t so close.
There were rumors that salary disputes were going on behind the scenes, and in a 2004 appearance on “Friday Night with Jonathan Ross,” Cattrall explained, “I felt after six years it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of ‘Sex and the City.’ When they didn’t seem keen on that I thought it was time to move on.”
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Parker had taken on a producer role midway through the series, making her payday significantly bigger than those of her co-stars. Still, Nixon and Davis have always remained friendly with her, while Cattrall has spoken out against her several times.
Kim Cattrall has spoken out against Sarah Jessica Parker multiple times. (James Devaney/Getty Images)
In 2017, she told Piers Morgan that the relationship between her and her former co-stars felt “toxic,” and about Parker specifically, she said, “I think she could’ve been nicer. I really think she could’ve been nicer. I don’t know what her issue is.”
Cattrall’s brother died in 2018, and Parker apparently reached out to her, which inspired an Instagram post from Cattrall that read in part, “Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona.”
Kim Cattrall wasn’t asked to star in the “Sex and the City” revival series “And Just Like That …” (James Devaney/GC Images)
When the “Sex and the City” revival series “And Just Like That …” began airing in 2021, the main cast returned full time, except for Cattrall. Parker explained her absence to The Hollywood Reporter, saying, “We did not ask her to be part of this because she made it clear that that wasn’t something she wanted to pursue, and it no longer felt comfortable for us, and so it didn’t occur to us.”
For her part, Parker has never publicly involved herself in the feud beyond calling it “heartbreaking” and “painful.”
“Glee”
“Glee” featured a long list of talented actors to handle all the singing and dancing the show required, but the star was always Lea Michele.
Members of the “Glee” cast, from left, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Cory Monteith, Lea Michele, Chris Colfer and Amber Riley perform at The Gibson Amphitheater on May 20, 2010, in Universal City, California. (Getty Images)
The show ended in 2015, but in 2020, after Michele made a social media post with a “Black Lives Matter” hashtag, a former co-star, a Black actress named Samantha Ware, tweeted, “Remember when you made my first television gig a living hell?!?! Cause I’ll never forget. I believe you told everyone that if you had the opportunity you would ‘s— in my wig!’ amongst other traumatic microaggressions that made me question a career in Hollywood.”
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Michele stated that she didn’t recall this particular exchange and said she’d never been racist, but she apologized for her behavior anyway. Despite that, former co-stars continued to speak out.
Samantha Ware, shown with Billy Lewis Jr., appeared on 11 episodes of “Glee.” (FOX Image Collection via Getty Images)
Heather Morris wrote a message on X, formerly Twitter, saying in part, “Was she unpleasant to work with? Very much so; for Lea to treat others with the disrespect that she did for as long as she did, I believe she should be called out.”
Dabier Snell, who appeared on an episode, tweeted, “GIRL YOU WOULDNT LET ME SIT AT THE TABLE WITH THE OTHER CAST MEMBERS CAUSE ‘I DIDNT BELONG THERE’ F— YOU LEA.”
In an interview on radio show “Access All Areas,” Matthew Morrison, another star, initially declined to comment by saying, “I honestly think it’s a distraction of the bigger issues that are going on right now… It’s kind of like, ah.” But he did add, “You want to be a good, pleasant person to be around. That’s about all I’m going to say on that.”
Lea Michele has been accused by several former co-stars of behaving like a diva. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
Yet another regular, Chris Colfer, was asked on a SiriusXM show last year if he’d be going to see Michele during her run in “Funny Girl” on Broadway, and he answered, “No, I can be triggered at home.”
“Fresh Prince of Bel Air”
Will Smith was only 21 when he landed his own show with “Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” and it seems like his early success may have bothered one of the veteran actors in the cast.
Will Smith and Janet Hubert in “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” (Chris Cuffaio/Getty Images)
After the third season, Janet Hubert, who played Smith’s Aunt Vivian, left the show, She was replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid, and Smith told an Atlanta radio station, per E! News, that Hubert had left because of him.,
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“I can say straight up that Janet Hubert wanted the show to be The Aunt Viv of Bel-Air Show… She’s mad now but she’s been mad all along,” he said. “She said once, ‘I’ve been in the business for 10 years and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show.’ No matter what, to her I’m just the Antichrist.”
Hubert has made several comments about her time on “Fresh Prince” over the years, many of them negative. In 2016, she appeared on “The Real,” and she said, “Janet Hubert was never difficult on that set. Janet Hubert was so professional, it wasn’t even funny. I think Will simply needed to win and I think sometimes when you get caught up in a lie and those things never happened.”
Will Smith and Janet Hubert reconciled in 2020 for a “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” reunion special. (Getty Images)
In 2020, Smith and Hubert had a conversation for a “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” reunion. He admitted then that he wasn’t “sensitive” to what she was going through as she ended her time on the show, and she explained, “They offered me this really bad deal in the third season… I had a new baby and a husband who was out of work, so I said no. I did not accept their offer. I was never ‘fired.’ That misconception was always put out there.”
Smith told her, “I was 21 years old. Everything was a threat to me. Not you – the world. I was so driven by fear.”
“24”
Kiefer Sutherland starred in “24,” and Freddie Prinze Jr. appeared for 24 episodes of the hit show. In an interview on “Good Morning America,” he later said his experience was so bad that it made him consider quitting acting altogether.
Kiefer Sutherland welcomed Freddie Prinze Jr. for a season of “24” in 2010. (Getty Images)
“I did ’24,’ it was terrible. I hated every moment of it,” Prinze said in 2014. “Kiefer was the most unprofessional dude in the world. That’s not me talking trash, I’d say it to his face, I think everyone that’s worked with him has said that. I just wanted to quit the business after that. So, I just sort of stopped.”
Detailing one of the jobs he took while stepping back from acting, he said, “I went and worked for Vince McMahon at the WWE for Christ’s sake and it was a crazier job than working with Kiefer. But, at least he [McMahon] was cool and tall. I didn’t have to take my shoes off to do scenes with him, which they made me do [with Sutherland]. Just put the guy on an apple box or don’t hire me next time. You know I’m 6 feet and he’s 5’4.”
Freddie Prinze Jr. claimed his experience working with Kiefer Sutherland was so bad that he nearly quit acting. (Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Dunkin’ Donuts)
Prinze’s comments came four years after he appeared on “24,” and it seemed that his remarks came as a surprise to his old co-star.
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Sutherland’s rep issued a statement to Fox News Digital then that read, “Kiefer worked with Freddie Prinze, Jr. more than five years ago, and this is the first he has heard of Freddie‘s grievances. Kiefer enjoyed working with Freddie and wishes him the best.”
“Grey’s Anatomy”
In 2007, a fight erupted on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy.” The specific details have been contested, but the gist is that an argument between Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey became physical and at one point Washington used a homophobic slur.
Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington allegedly got into a fight on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy.” (Scott Garfield/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
In the 2021 book “How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy,” excerpted by People, show writer Mark Wilding explained, “I think one of them had been late to set one day and the other one then decided to pay him back by being late himself. Then it sort of exploded. They got into an arguing match, and then before you know it they were physically fighting.”
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Another writer, Harry Werksman, claimed that Washington “went after” Dempsey, theorizing, “I guess he felt disrespected that he and the crew had been waiting. He went after Patrick, pushed him up against the wall, and said, ‘You can’t talk to me the way you talk to that little f—– T.R.'”
T.R. Knight, another actor on the show, wasn’t publicly out at the time, but those close to him knew he was gay. Washington apologized for using the slur, then apologized for using it again during an interview about the situation at that year’s Golden Globes, where he said, “No, I did not call T.R. a f—–. Never happened, never happened.”
Katherine Heigl also called out Isaiah Washington for his comments. (Getty Images)
His stance, as he explained in another interview with Larry King, was that he did say that word, but he didn’t direct it at Knight. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Knight said, “He referred to me as a f—–. Everyone heard it.”
After one of Washington’s statement at the Golden Globes, Katherine Heigl, another actress on “Grey’s Anatomy,” plainly said, “I’m going to be really honest right now, he needs to just not speak in public. Period. I’m sorry, that did not need to be said, I’m not OK with it.”
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Washington was fired from the show, and earlier this year he announced his retirement from acting, writing on X, “It is with a heavy heart and a sense of relief that I am announcing my early retirement from the entertainment industry today… it seems that the haters, provocateurs and the Useful Idiots have won.”
