Sarah Michelle Gellar saw firsthand what Shannen Doherty went through during her tumultuous time on the set of Charmed.
“It was a difficult time. I was there for it,” Gellar, 46, recalled during an interview with E! News on Sunday, February 25. “I think Shannen’s just about sharing her truths in general right now.”
Gellar had nothing but praise after Doherty, 52, addressed her past feud with Alyssa Milano, adding, “What’s amazing about her is, flaws and all, she’s showing it all. I will support her. I know it wasn’t the easiest time, but she’s a different person now.”
Doherty and costar Holly Marie Combs recently claimed on Doherty’s “Let’s Be Clear” podcast that Milano, 51, was behind Doherty getting fired from the show.
“We didn’t mean to [fire Shannen], but we’ve been backed into this corner,” Combs, 50, recalled producer Jonathan Levin telling her at the time. “‘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.’”
Charmed, which ran from 1996 to 2008, starred Milano as Phoebe Halliwell and Combs as Piper on all eight seasons. After three seasons, Doherty’s character, Prue, was killed off and Rose McGowen was brought on as Paige during season 4.
Milano broke her silence about the claims during a panel at Megacon earlier this month.
“I will just say that I’m sad. I don’t think it’s really that I’m sad for me or for my life or how it does or does not affect my life. I’m the most sad for the fans,” she told attendees at the fan convention. “I am the most sad that a show that has meant so much to so many people has been tarnished by a toxicity that is still to this day almost a quarter of a century later still happening.”
Milano said she was upset that others “can’t move past” the drama, noting, “When I think back to that time it was hard for me, and I have worked super hard in my life in the last 25 years to heal all of my trauma. And that’s not just all the trauma that I experienced while shooting but all of my trauma. I’ve worked really hard to heal the bits because I understand that hurt people hurt people and my intention is to be a healed person that helps heal people.”
In a separate social media statement, Milano clarified that she “did not have the power” to get anyone fired.
“I don’t know one other show that has had the success that Charmed had where the cast still speaks ill of the experience a quarter of a century later. This is 15 movies and 13 TV shows ago for me,” Milano wrote via Instagram. “This was 11 years before my 15-year marriage and 13 years before having my first child. This was so long ago that any retelling of these stories from anyone is just revisionist history.”
Doherty, who was joined by Combs and McGowan, 50, at a separate MegaCon panel for Charmed, swiftly addressed Milano’s response.
“At this point in my life, with my health diagnosis — sorry if I start crying — with fighting a horrific disease every day of my life, it is also incredibly important to me that the truth actually be told as opposed to the narrative that others put out there for me,” Doherty, who is currently battling stage IV breast cancer which has spread to her brain, shared during the emotional moment. “There is no revisionist history happening in the truth that I know we told. There’s no brush flinging or shoe flinging. There is no lateness to set. There is no mediator for months on end.”
Doherty continued: I recall the facts as if I were still living in them. And what I will say is that what somebody else may call ‘drama’ is an actual trauma for me, that I have been living through it for an extremely long time. And it is only through my battle with cancer that I decided to address this trauma and be open and honest about it so that I can actually heal from a livelihood that was taken from me, a livelihood that was taken away from my family, because someone else wanted to be No. 1 on the call sheet. That is the truth.”
