The Witch Without A Stitch
Actress Melissa Joan Hart is in trouble for showing off her sexy side. And more.
Hart posed in underwear, skimpy bathing suits and sometimes less in current issues of both Bikini and Maxim magazines. She also talks about sex and binge drinking. Hart claims she consumed more than a dozen shots of tequila on her 21st birthday and then threw up before being kicked out of a bar.
Now the publisher of Archie Comics is hopping mad about all that. Archie Comics owns the rights to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch - the character 23-year old Hart plays on television. Michael Silberkleit complains that Hart has hurt Sabrina's wholesome image. The New York Post says he wants her and her mother Paula, who is the show's executive producer, fired - unless Melissa apologizes.
"If Ms. Hart wants to change her image, she must wait until after her contract with Viacom expires and refrain from associating our Sabrina the Teenage Witch character with her personal endorsement of binge drinking, participation in pornography and discussions about sex," Silberkleit angrily wrote in a letter faxed to Viacom chief Sumner Redstone.
Hart claimed she posed seductively to help promote Drive Me Crazy, a teen comedy opening on Friday.
While she stopped short of apologizing to her fans, Hart told USA Today, "I'd like to set the record straight. I have a TV show and I love it, and I have an audience I want to stay true to and (show) the utmost respect for."
"Melissa is addressing the concerns of Archie Comics Publications, which she prefers to do directly and privately, rather than publicly at this time," said a statement carefully crafted by her Hollywood publicist and released Wednesday.
"We're looking forward to hearing from her," said Charles Grimes, attorney for Archie Comics. "But we still feel that it's important that a message be communicated to kids about the fact that drinking is not appropriate for young people. We're still hopeful that she will join with us in something public," he said in the Post.
"Our position right now is that we're hopeful that she will realize the error of her ways," Grimes says.
A Viacom spokeswoman said the company has no comment.