Alyssa Milano made her mark as Phoebe Halliwell on The WB’s Charmed. However, that doesn’t mean she tunes in to the CW reboot, which stars Madeleine Mantock, Melonie Diaz and Sarah Jeffery.
“I have not seen the Charmed reboot, because I feel like it would be hard for me to sit through it,” Milano, 46, told Us Weekly exclusively during the #BlogHerHealth19 event in Los Angeles on Thursday, January 24. “It was such a huge part of my life, and I think the way in which it all went down from the beginning and not being included in any of those discussions, kind of makes it hard for me to accept that it’s a thing.”
The original drama ran for eight seasons from 1998 to 2006. After the reboot was announced, Milano shared her feelings with Entertainment Tonight, revealing she was annoyed that the creators didn’t approach the original stars.
“I wish that they would have come to us and we would have been involved since the beginning,” the Who’s the Boss alum said in August 2018. “But having said that, I do hope that it reaches the newer generation and impacts that generation the way ours was able to do for its generation.”
Other members of the original cast have also reacted to the reboot. Shannen Doherty, who appeared in the first three seasons of the series, originally expressed her disappointment with the show’s “fierce, funny, feminist” description. “Their wording is terrible and a bit offensive. But, everyone makes mistakes. Perhaps with the backlash they will be more thoughtful in future,” she tweeted in January 2018. Later, she told ET she thought the reboot was great.
“I’m happy to see that a show, that back then was all about strong women who supported and loved each other, is now coming back again in this day and age. It’s about female empowerment again,” the Heathers star, 47, said in September.
Additionally, Holly Marie Combs, who played Piper Halliwell, has made her feelings about the reboot clear. “Let me say first that I appreciate the jobs and opportunities the Charmed reboot has created. But I will never understand what is fierce, funny, or feminist in creating a show that basically says the original actresses are too old to do a job they did 12 years ago,” Combs tweeted in May 2018. “I hope the new show is far better than the marketing, so the true legacy does remain.”
That January, Combs, 45, also tweeted that she felt the same way Milano did, in that she should have been approached. “Until you ask us to rewrite it like Brad Kern did weekly don’t even think of capitalizing on our hard work,” she wrote on Twitter at the time. “Charmed belongs to the 4 of us, our vast amount of writers, crews and predominantly the fans. FYI you will not fool them by owning a title/stamp. So bye.”
With reporting by Taylor Ferber
