Whatever Happened To Melissa Joan Hart?
From "Lizzie McGuire" star Hilary Duff to Nickelodeon favorite Amanda Bynes, millennials had a number of fierce females to idolize throughout their youth. But one of the most influential was Melissa Joan Hart, who graced our TV screens every Friday night on The WB on the hit series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch."
Two years after the conclusion of her breakthrough series "Clarissa Explains It All," Hart portrayed magical 16-year-old Sabrina Spellman over the course of seven seasons, which ran from 1996 to 2003 (via IMDb). Chaos ensues as Sabrina is forced to navigate her newly-discovered powers; reside with her kooky aunts Hilda (Caroline Rhea) and Zelda (Beth Broderick) and talking cat Salem (Nick Bakay); and hide all of this from boyfriend Harvey Kinkle (Nate Richert), best friend Valerie Birkhead (Lindsay Sloane), and arch-nemesis Libby Chessler (Jenna Leigh Green).
It's been quite some time since "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" went off the air. Let's take a look at what Hart has been up to.
Melissa Joan Hart is still a successful actor
While some child/teen stars fall off the Hollywood map as they get older, this has not been the case for Hart. For four seasons, from 2010 to 2015, Hart embraced her comedic chops alongside Joey Lawrence in ABC Family's "Melissa & Joey." She played politician Mel Burke, who hires Joe Longo (Lawrence), a down-on-his-luck Ponzi scheme victim, to serve as an unlikely babysitter for her niece Lennox (Taylor Spreitler) and nephew Ryder (Nick Robinson).
In addition to the sitcom, Hart helps audiences get into the holiday spirit by regularly starring in Christmas films. Hart teamed up with Mario Lopez in 2007's "Holiday in Handcuffs," which sees frazzled Trudie Chandler (Hart) kidnap David Martin (Lopez) to trick her family into believing she's in a relationship. Hart credits "Holiday in Handcuffs," which garnered 7 million viewers (via The Hollywood Reporter) during its ABC Family premiere, for being "the vehicle that started the crazy Christmas-movie craze," per Glamour. Hart and Lopez co-starred again in 2017's "A Very Merry Toy Store," which centers on competing toy shop owners Connie Forrester and Will DiNova.
When asked what keeps her coming back to the holiday movie circuit, Hart told TV Insider, "People at Christmastime want a happy ending. They want to know the girl gets the guy. It's hard to stray from that when it's worked for so many years."
She co-owns a production company
Many Melissa Joan Hart fans might not realize that she directs and/or produces the majority of projects she stars in. Hartbreak Films was founded in 1993 by Hart and her mother Paula Hart, a dynamic duo that's been behind everything from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" to "Melissa & Joey" to "A Very Merry Toy Store."
Currently, Hart is thrilled to be spending more time directing and producing rather than acting, following in the footsteps of inspirations such as Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Fred Savage, Ron Howard, and Henry Winkler (via Glamour). "Directing was always something I wanted to do, but it wasn't really welcoming to women at the time. But I was able to get my first job directing 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' in 2001," she said. "I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing, and what I always dreamt for myself at an older age in this industry."
Most recently, Hart directed several episodes each of "iCarly," "Young Sheldon," and "The Goldbergs," as well as Feliz NaviDAD (via IMDb), a 2020 Lifetime holiday film starring Mario Lopez as a single father hesitant to get back into the world of dating.
Hart made Wheel of Fortune history
Since 2021, a variety of famous faces have appeared on the spinoff "Celebrity Wheel of Fortune" to spin the wheel, guess letters, and attempt to bring home a massive cash prize of $1 million for the charity of their choice. None were able to do it until Melissa Joan Hart came along on October 17, 2021.
Hart, who competed against Tituss Burgess and Lacey Chabert, was the first celebrity player to earn $1 million (via USA Today). "Vanna White's face turned white. Vanna looked at me and was like, 'You got it! You got it!' I hit the roof. She hit the roof," said Hart. "It was super exciting and pretty nerve-wracking. I rarely win game shows."
Hart donated the funds to the Jackson, Mississippi-based nonprofit Youth Villages and its LifeSet program, which helps those about to age out of the foster care system (via WAPT).
"It's going to help kids in the foster care system with independent living skills," said LifeSet specialist Tanisha Baker of the $1 million donation. "We provide services, such as going back to school, finding a job, opening a savings account, doing transportation. It's really going to benefit these kids."
She's a wife and mother of three
July 2022 marks Hart's 19th wedding anniversary with husband Mark Wilkerson, frontman of the now-disbanded rock group Course of Nature. She met Wilkerson at the 2002 Kentucky Derby. The couple shares three sons -– Mason, born in 2006, Braydon, born in 2008, and Tucker, born in 2012 (via Country Living).
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the family made a major move from Connecticut to Nashville, Tennessee. Hart is proud of her boys for embracing their mom's fast-paced, often-hectic lifestyle (via People). She said, "I'm really lucky. They're very adaptable and they move around a lot and they make friends easily."
Hart's no stranger to the high-pressure entertainment industry, but watching her babies grow up is admittedly stressful. She's also getting a taste of what Sabrina's aunts Hilda and Zelda experienced while trying to raise a teenager. "My oldest one is going to get his [driver's] permit soon, which I'm freaking out about," she related. "Now my kids are getting into dating and girls and school stuff, school drama and wanting to be social and, 'Mom, you're not cool.'"
She is still in touch with her Sabrina co-stars
Sabrina, Harvey, and their Westbridge High School peers may have grown up, but they're still on good terms and see each other from time to time. On March 11-13, 2022, in Hartford, Connecticut, Melissa Joan Hart, Harvey Richert, Jenna Leigh Green, Caroline Rhea, and Beth Broderick reunited at 90s Con, a highly-anticipated event that also welcomed stars from "Full House," "Boy Meets World," and more.
On her Instagram, Hart shared a handful of photos that feature the group looking just as overjoyed as fans about the reunion. Green commented, "That was a blast! Now I need a week to recover!," while Richert said, "So much fun! Miss you already."
Hart is also still friendly with Elisa Donovan and Soleil Moon Frye, who played Sabrina's college friends, Morgan Cavanaugh and Roxie King, respectively, in later seasons. For Halloween 2021, Hart posted a throwback photo of the three sporting costumes for the show's 100th episode. Donovan commented, "I love this so much. And I recall how the press asked us how 100 episodes felt...and Soleil and I had only been there for 5...so I said 'It feels like 5!' Love you, lady!"