CharmedGuest Star Recalls 'Major Divide' on Set with Shannen Doherty and Alyssa Milano

Mar. 15, 2025

Shannen Doherty (left) and Alyssa Milano on season 2 of ‘Charmed’.Photo:Viacom / courtesy Everett

Viacom / courtesy Everett

Rifts on the set ofCharmedwere noticeable from the show’s early stages, and they didn’t only affect the show’s leads, as one former guest star is now revealing.

On Monday’s episode ofPod Meets World,CSIstar Elisabeth Hernois recalled the “strange” energy she felt on the set ofCharmedwhen she guest-starred for an episode on season 3.

The dynamic on set was “interesting,” she said, as she “hadn’t really ever witnessed anything like that on a set — where people really aren’t hiding not liking each other.”

“Definitely as a young person, I sensed the tension on the set,” Harnois, 44, said, noting that her overall experience was “actually really good” as she shouted outAlyssa Milano, who she said “was a sweetheart to me.”

“She really took me under her wing, and a lot of my stuff was with her too, so that was helpful,” she recalled.

Elisabeth Harnois arrives at CBS, CW And Showtime 2015 Summer TCA Party.Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Shannen DohertyandHolly Marie Combs, who made up the other ⅔ of the sister witches who led the show, “were nice to me but not as effusively kind as Alyssa was,” Harnois said.

Alyssa Milano as Phoebe Halliwell, Shannen Doherty as Prue Halliwell and Holly Marie Combs as Piper Halliwell in ‘Charmed’.Getty Images

Getty Images

Harnois’ observations about the dynamic on the set ofCharmedcomes afterDoherty, 52, claimed that she felt constant “competitiveness”and a “lack of female support” with Milano, 51.

She recalled a memory from season 1 of the WB series when Combs, now 50, underwent surgery todeal with a growing uterine tumor“the size of a baseball,” and she wasn’t allowed in to visit her.

“I remembered you texted me and were like, ‘Dude, are you going to come and see me?’ And I can feel like your pain of feeling like I’d abandoned you," she continued. “But I also felt like my anger at the situation of not being allowed to come see you, and like how sort of family had like swooped in and caused like this sort of weird divide between the two of us that then continued throughout season 2 where I think I cried every single night of season 2.”

Combs then joined in on the discussion as she said that the show’s producer told her he wasforced to pick between Doherty and Milano to stay on the showprior to Doherty’s departure after season 3.

On anepisodeof Doherty’s podcast, Combs said the producer allegedly told her Milano had “threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment" and she was “documenting every time she felt uncomfortable on set.”

In response, Doherty said, “I don’t ever remember being mean to her on set."

Last month,Milano weighed in on the claimas she said she was “sad that we all can’t just celebrate the success of a show that meant so much to all of us.” OnInstagramthe next day, she clarified, “I did not have the power to get anyone fired.”

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Combs then responded, saying her and Doherty’srecollection is “not revisionist history,”which Milanopreviously referredto their versions as.  “This is just the history [Milano] didn’t want people to know about it. And the history Shannen wasn’t ready to talk about until one month ago,” said Combs. “No one should have to lie about their own life for the comfort of another.”

The actress also explained how “ironic” it was that Milano claimed she did not “have the power to fire anyone” when “this was actually all about power."

“Let me explain what she did have the power to do," Combs wrote. “She had the power to stop the process at any time. She had the power to not talk to the mediator/therapist brought on to protect profits. And when producers said, ‘Ok, we will let Shannen go,’ Alyssa also had the power to say, ‘No, I don’t want that.’ But she did not … Even now this pains me to write. It was heartbreaking then and still now.”

source: people.com