For nearly two decades, a steady stream of drama has erupted between ‘Charmed’ stars Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan, Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs. Here’s a breakdown of all those feuds.
Charmed may have aired its last episode in 2006, but fans are still hearing about the drama between its co-stars to this day. Before all the Twitter wars and bitter interviews, however, the WB series kicked off in 1998 with its three leading stars — Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Shannen Doherty — playing the Halliwell witches who discover they’re extremely powerful (yet good) witches.
In the beginning, there seemed to be no bad blood. Holly and Shannen were bridesmaids at Alyssa’s wedding to Cinjuna Tate, whom the bride split with 10 months later. Then, in 1999, Alyssa only had high praise for her co-stars in an E! special (per Yahoo): “I feel that we’re incredibly lucky that the three of us found each other. We all have horses so we all have things that are in common. Holly and I keep our horses at the same ranch so we go riding all the time together and we’re very similar and, um, very close, we’re blessed in that way. It’s like a big slumber party every day. We giggle a lot.”
Those sentiments changed throughout the years, however. Let’s look back at how the feuds between the stars of Charmed developed over time:
2001: Shannen Doherty Suddenly Leaves The Show
Shannen’s character, Prue Halliwell, died in the Season 3 finale called “All Hell Breaks Loose” — which is the perfect analogy of what actually happened in real life after Shannen’s departure. The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum did not hide her dissatisfaction in interviews after her exit, telling Entertainment Tonight in 2001, “I want to work with actors who really, really care and that want to be there every single day. I don’t want to work with people who b-tch about their job and complain about it and say that they hate it or anything else.”
At the time, there were reports that Shannen and Alyssa weren’t exactly getting along. Before Season 4 premiered, Alyssa acknowledged this tension by telling Entertainment Weekly, “I think it’s hard when you put…two very different people together. I’m very laid-back and passive…[Shannen’s] got a lot of energy, she’s very headstrong, she wants to get the job done…I think it’s unfortunate that she left, and that she needed to bad-mouth everyone involved and the audience. She sounds really angry. I just hope I didn’t contribute to that anger.”
Meanwhile, in the same interview, Holly’s response to Shannen’s send-off was less tinged with drama. After all, the two had already been friends before filming Charmed together. “It was done very poorly, in my opinion,” Holly admitted, referring to the tragic death of Shannen’s character at the end of Season 3. She added, ”We should have had an opportunity to have her character, Prue, make a graceful exit and have our story writers properly plan for that.”
2013: Alyssa Milano Compares The Set Of ‘Charmed’ To A High School
Twelve years later, fans were given more answers as to what exactly happened between Alyssa and Shannen. On Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2013, Alyssa admitted that they “never really found out what happened” in regards to Shannen’s exit from the show, but did say this: “I can tell you that we were on the air with her for three years, and there were definitely some rough days.”
She went into further detail, adding, “I never went to a high school because I was tutored on the set, but I imagine it would have been a lot like that. Holly and Shannen were best friends for like 10 years before the show started, so it was very much sort of like high school. I would hope that in our thirties it wouldn’t be like that anymore.”
Holly was apparently tuning in, because she clapped back on Twitter! “I went to high school. It was a very important job to me and always will be,” the actress for the middle Halliwell sister wrote.
However, Alyssa now appears to be on good terms with Shannen, and even wrote that she’s holding her former co-star and rival “tight in [her] heart” after Shannen’s cancer returned in early 2020.
2017: A New Feud Forms In The Wake Of The #MeTooMovement
While Alyssa was known for her feud with Shannen, by the late 2010’s, her feud with a different co-star — Rose McGowan — came to center stage. Rose played Alyssa’s half-sister, Paige Matthews, and served as Shannen’s replacement on Charmed between 2001-2006. But in 2017, she infamously tweeted that Alyssa made her want to “vomit” after seeing her co-star still stand by Georgina Chapman, the wife of film producer Harvey Weinstein (whom Rose had accused of rape).
2018: Rose McGowan Calls Alyssa Milano A “Lie”
Rose further condemned Alyssa amid the #MeTooMovement, despite both stars being the main celebrity faces behind the exposure of Hollywood’s alleged sexual assault predators. Rose was wary of Alyssa’s advocacy, and explained why in a 2018 interview with Nightline that went viral.
“I don’t like her,” Rose told Nightline host JuJu Chang. She then referenced Alyssa’s husband Dave Bugliari, who used to be an agent for the Creative Arts Agency (CAA): “Do you think I don’t know these people? Do the math. Who’s behind Time’s Up? CAA. Where do they meet? CAA? Who needs good PR? CAA. Who are part of the pimp problem? CAA.”
2020: Alyssa Milano Reignites Feud With Rose McGowan
After the 2020 Democratic National Convention wrapped up, Rose criticized the political party by tweeting in Aug. 2020, “What have the Democrats done to solve ANYTHING? Help the poor? No. Help black & brown people? No. Stop police brutality? No. Help single mothers? No. Help children? No. You have achieved nothing. NOTHING. Why did people vote [Donald] Trump? Because of you motherf–kers.”
Alyssa quickly snapped back with a Twitter thread, pointing out all of the Democratic party’s accomplishments since 1920. The clapback didn’t come out of nowhere, though, since Rose had already called out Alyssa’s support of Joe Biden earlier that year, despite the Democratic presidential nominee facing and denying a sexual assault allegation from his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade.
This ignited a spark in Rose, who had multiple bones to pick with Alyssa. She accused her co-star of stealing the #metoo saying from activist Tarana Burke (who started the original movement in 2006), and also accused Alyssa of creating a “toxic” environment on the Charmed set.
“You stole #metoo (a brilliant communication tool, not a movement) from Tarana. You co-opted my movement, the Cultural Reset, for fame, jealous of me for outing my rapist,” she tweeted, adding, “You made 250k per week on Charmed…You threw a fit in front of the crew, yelling, ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this shit!’ Appalling behavior on the daily. I cried every time we got renewed because you made that set toxic AF. Now, get off my coattails you f–king fraud.”
Rose later revealed that Alyssa had blocked her on Twitter, making their Twitter war come to a standstill.