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The truth behind one of the most infamous TV feuds has finally been revealed. Holly Marie Combs, who played Piper Halliwell on the hit series Charmed, confirmed the long-standing rumor that Alyssa Milano, who played her sister Phoebe, was responsible for getting Shannen Doherty, who played their eldest sister Prue, fired from the show after the third season.
Combs opened up about the behind-the-scenes drama on her former co-star Doherty's podcast, Let's Be Clear, on Monday. She said that Milano and her mother tried to create a rift between her and Doherty during the second season, when both of them were going through personal and health issues.
Doherty revealed that she had to wait 24 hours to visit Combs after she had surgery to remove a potentially cancerous tumor from her uterus, because Milano and her mom were blocking people from seeing her. "I remember you texted me, 'Dude are you going to come and see me?'" Doherty recalled. "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. [It] caused a weird divide between the two of us that continued throughout season 2. I think I cried every single night."
Combs admitted that she was seduced by Milano's family, who offered her a sense of belonging that she lacked growing up with teenage parents. "I think it was pretty obvious I was raised by teenage parents and I didn’t have a big family. So you’re right, when a family swooped in and tried to basically adopt me it was very seductive for me," Combs said. "I also wanted everybody to get along, I wanted the show to be successful. There were no angels, there were no demons. 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."
The tension between Milano and Doherty escalated to the point where Milano allegedly gave the producers an ultimatum: either Doherty goes or she goes. The producers chose to side with Milano, and Doherty's character was killed off in the season 3 finale. Doherty said that she was blindsided by the decision and felt betrayed by the show and her co-stars. "I was hurt, I was angry, I was confused. I felt like I had given so much to the show and I didn't understand why they would do that to me," she said.
Milano has not responded to the allegations, but her mother, Lin Milano, categorically denied them, according to TMZ. She said that she never interfered with Combs' hospital visit and that she had nothing to do with Doherty's departure from the show. She also claimed that Doherty and Combs are lying to get attention and publicity for their podcast.
Charmed, which ran from 1998 to 2006, was a popular fantasy drama about three sisters who discover they are powerful witches destined to fight evil. The show was rebooted in 2018 with a new cast, but the original stars have been vocal about their dislike of the new version. Combs and Doherty have also been critical of Milano's political activism and support for the #MeToo movement, accusing her of being hypocritical and self-serving..
