Holly Marie Combs CONFIRMS long-standing rumor that Alyssa Milano got Shannen Doherty fired from Charmed by making a ‘her or me’ ultimatum
Holly Marie Combs opened up about the behind-the-scenes drama between her, Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty on their hit series, Charmed, on Monday.
While discussing the Beverly Hills, 90210 star’s abrupt exit from the series in 2001 after its third season, on Doherty’s podcast, Let’s Be Clear, Combs, 50, revealed she had a meeting with show producer, Jonathan Levin, about her co-star’s firing.
Combs claimed Levin told her: ‘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,’ she recalled Levin telling her.
Looking back: Holly Marie Combs (seen in 2016) opened up about the behind-the-scenes drama between her, Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty on their hit series, Charmed, on Monday
The Pretty Little Liars stated that Milano, 51, had ‘documented every time she felt uncomfortable on set’ and had seemingly built a case against her and Doherty.
Meanwhile, Combs, who played Piper Halliwell on all 179 episodes of the series from 1998-2006, insisted that she couldn’t recall any ‘harsh words’ exchanged or ‘on-set brawls.’
‘There are actually people who behave badly and get away with it,’ Combs said, with frustration in her voice. ‘I don’t think people understand that never happened here.’
Combs stated she was so upset about Doherty’s firing that she didn’t want to do the show ‘without Shannen.’
After saying she no longer wanted to do the show, Combs alleged that Levin threatened to sue her if she quit.
After her firing, Doherty said she replayed ‘everything’ in her ‘brain’ for a year, but couldn’t ‘ever remember being mean to’ Milano.
On an episode titled, Let’s Be Charmed…with Holly Marie Combs (Part 1), which aired on Doherty’s podcast last week, Doherty accused Milano and her mom, Lin, of trying to turn Combs against her during production of the show’s second season.
Doherty also told Combs that she found it ‘really interesting of [Milano]’ to try and ‘pull’ them away from each other, despite their close friendship, which began prior to working together.
Behind-the-scenes drama: While discussing the Beverly Hills, 90210 star’s abrupt exit from the series in 2001 after season three, on Doherty’s podcast, Let’s Be Clear , Combs, 50, revealed she had a meeting with show producer, Jonathan Levin, about her costar’s firing; pictured alongside Alyssa Milano and Shannen Doherty
‘I also felt my anger at the situation of not being allowed to come see you and how a sort of family had swooped in,’ she said, adding that she ‘cried every single night’ during production on the show’s second season.
Combs said that growing up amid adverse circumstances drew her to Milano’s family at the time.
‘I think it was pretty obvious I was raised by teenage parents and I didn’t have a big family,’ Combs said. ‘So you’re right, when a family swooped in and tried to basically adopt me it was very seductive for me.
‘I also wanted everybody to get along, I wanted the show to be successful. There were no angels, there were no demons.’
Rose McGowan went on to star in a leading role on the show after Doherty left the cast in 2001
At the time, both were dealing with exacerbating off-screen issues: Doherty said that her late father, John Thomas Doherty (who died in 2010 at 66), had been ‘in and out of the hospital nonstop.’
Combs had to undergo surgery on her uterus to remove a tumor amid cancer concerns, which led to production on the series to be suspended.
Doherty said Milano and her mother had tried to restrict her access to Combs in the wake of the medical procedure.
‘I waited 24 hours after your surgery to go and then it wasn’t even easy for me to get in,’ said Doherty, who played Brenda Walsh on Beverly Hills, 90210 from 1990–1994. ‘I was like being told I couldn’t even get in.’
‘Alyssa and her mom were blocking people from seeing you and at the time you didn’t know – I remember you texted me, ‘Dude are you going to come and see me?”
Doherty said she was upset over the scenario, which she added ’caused a weird divide between the two of us that continued throughout season two.
Yikes: Doherty hinted at tensions on the set of the fantasy drama in 2001, when she told Entertainment Tonight of her departure from the series, ‘I want to work with actors who really, really care and that want to be there every single day’
Combs added: We all had bad days, we all had good days. We all could have behaved better at certain points but there was a lack of awareness of a bigger broader picture.’
Doherty hinted at tensions on the set of the fantasy drama in 2001, when she told Entertainment Tonight of her departure from the series, ‘I want to work with actors who really, really care and that want to be there every single day.
‘I don’t want to work with people who b**ch about their job and complain about it and say that they hate it or anything else.’
Rose McGowan went on to appear on the show in the ensuing seasons, saying in her 2018 book Brave, ‘I wasn’t going to be playing Shannen’s role, but it was still someone new for the fans to bond with … I knew that I had a slim chance at success here.’
Milano in 2021 told Entertainment Tonight that she and Doherty – who she called ‘a great actress’ – are on cordial terms these days
She said that the show ‘at times a very stressful environment’ and she ‘started to have panic attacks because of everything [she] was pushing down.’
Doherty and Combs have stayed on good terms, as they co-starred on the 2015 travel series Off the Map With Shannen & Holly.
Milano in 2021 told Entertainment Tonight that she and Doherty – who she called ‘a great actress’ – are on cordial terms these days.
‘You know, I could take responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had,’ she told the outlet. ‘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.’
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