Melissa Joan Hart Plays a Grandma in Lifetime Movie, Fans React

To many fans, Melissa Joan Hart will forever be Sabrina the Teenage Witch — so learning she recently played a grandma is causing many to freak out.

Hart, 47, portrays Ella in Lifetime’s 2023 ripped from the headlines film, Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story. While the movie premiered in October, a clip from the film recently went viral on social media after fans discovered Ella is a grandmother of two kids, one of which is supposed to be 11-year-old Mary Bailey, who killed her stepdad while following her mother’s wishes.

“Oh, it’s ready,” Hart’s Ella said as she pulled a cooked turkey out of the oven for Christmas dinner in the clip shared via TikTok on Tuesday, December 12. “It’s perfect, grandma,” her granddaughter Mary (Presley Allard) responded.

Fans were shocked that Hart was cast as a grandma of an 11 year old with one fan writing in the comments, “I feel attacked! Melissa Joan Hart is a grandmother? I’m pretty sure she’s my age! 😂😂😂.”

“Umm had to rush to the comment to make sure I was not alone. … We are not subscribing to MJH as a grandma!  — Signed every 90’s kid,” a second user wrote. A third fan joked, “Ya’ll. Melissa Joan Hart playing the grandma & JLo is still playing the bride in movies. I am dead 😂.” (Jennifer Lopez is 54 and starred as a bride-to-be in two 2022 films.)

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The now-viral clip also got a lot of responses via X as it made its rounds this week. “Melissa Joan Hart? Playing a grandmother? Now, I feel old af,” one fan responded via X on Wednesday, December 13, while another wrote, “I just saw a clip of Melissa Joan Hart playing a grandmother. Someone hold me I am unwell.”

One Thursday, December 14, one user compared the casting choice to an episode of Jerry Springer, writing via X, “Uhhhhh, what in the @jerryspringer?? @MelissaJoanHart is 47 yrs old!! Is this a #TeenMom situation where the kid also had a child in high school??”

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Hart hasn’t publicly commented on fans’ outrage over her grandma title onscreen, but she did thank viewers in October for tuning in. “Thanks for watching! If you or someone you know is in a dangerous situation, please save this number and find help!” she wrote via Instagram, referring to the film’s depiction of violence and abuse.

While fans have been vocal about the clips of Hart as a grandma, her real-life sons have chosen to distance themselves from her career.

“They want nothing to do with it,” Hart exclusively told Us Weekly of her kids’ aversion to acting last month. “They think it’s weird. And you know what, I kind of get that. They’re like, ‘It’s just weird. I don’t want to watch you on TV and I don’t want to watch you kiss another man in a Christmas movie.’”

Hart shares sons Mason, 17, Braydon, 15, and Tucker, 11, with her husband Mark Wilkerson, who also chooses to look the other way when it comes to her kissing scenes.

“He ignores all that,” the Clarissa Explains It All alum revealed to Us. “Luckily, he doesn’t pay attention to that stuff. He rarely looks at my social media or anything like that.”