Melissa Joan Hart Playing A Grandma In A New Movie Has Gone Viral

Only 20 years after playing Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Melissa Joan Hart is now a grandma — on TV, that is. The 47-year-old actor plays a grandmother in her new Lifetime movie Would You Kill For Me? The Mary Bailey Story, and while fans are upset and distressed about this development, Hart has the most witty response to this outcry.

In the film, which is based on a true story, Hart portrays Ella, the grandmother of 11-year-old Mary Bailey who was asked by her mother Priscilla Wyers to kill her stepfather in 1987.

The movie was already released in October, but a clip of Hart cooking a Thanksgiving turkey with her onscreen grandchildren has gone viral on social media. “It’s perfect, grandma,” her grandson gushes.

The TikTok comments section was flooded with people who were absolutely stunned by the movie industry's aging of Hart. “I feel attacked! I’m pretty sure she’s my age,” one person wrote. “Did that little girl just call Clarissa Explains It All ‘grandma’??” another asked in disbelief.

One fan simply refused to believe it. “We are not subscribing to MJH as a grandma!-Signed every 90’s kid,” they wrote.

Fans on X (formerly Twitter) also felt personally attacked by Hart’s casting. “Melissa Joan Hart as WHOM?????,” a user asked. “Melissa Joan Hart is four years older than me and getting cast as a grandma so I just need to lie down for a minute,” one fan wrote, with another saying, “Someone hold me I am unwell.”

One fan decided to punish the messenger, a.k.a. the people who shared the clip. “Whoever just put a clip of Melissa Joan Hart playing a grandma in a hallmark movie on my timeline: I hope you fall madly in love with someone who has chronic night sweats,” they wrote.

Hart’s Response To The Outcry

Hart responded to the backlash in an Instagram post, stating that she was touched by fans’ outrage.

“While I’m proud of my performance in my most recent movie #WouldYouKillForMe, I couldn’t be more flattered that people don’t think of me as a grandmother (no matter how possible it is at the age of 47),” she wrote.

“It’s also refreshing to go viral for my work and not something controversial.”

She ended her note by cleverly nodding to both Sabrina and her first breakout show Clarissa Explains It All, joking,“I guess now Clarissa can Explain AARP or play the Middle-Aged Witch.”