Long Island Native Melissa Joan Hart Says She Once Turned Down Playboy Offer, Citing Family and Future Kids

SAYVILLE, NY – Melissa Joan Hart, who grew up in Sayville and attended Sayville High School, says she declined an offer from Playboy during the height of her 1990s fame because she did not want the decision to follow her family – or her future children – for years afterward. Hart, born in Smithtown and raised on Long Island before her acting career expanded, discussed the decision recently while reflecting on how earlier publicity affected her relatives.

Hart made the comments during an appearance on the “Sibling Revelry” podcast hosted by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson, according to reporting by Fox News and iHeart’s The Breakfast Club. In that conversation, Hart described how family members faced unwanted attention after she posed for Maxim in 1999, and said that experience shaped how she viewed a more explicit magazine offer that arrived later.

Hart rose to prominence as the lead on Nickelodeon’s Clarissa Explains It All and later became one of the era’s most recognizable TV faces as the star of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Biographical summaries note her Long Island upbringing in Sayville and her later move with family to New York City during her teen years, long before she built a national career in television, film, and producing.

For Long Islanders, Hart’s comments carry a hometown angle: a performer with Sayville roots describing how early celebrity intersected with small-town family life, where relatives still had to show up at school, work, and everyday community spaces after magazine covers hit newsstands. Patch previously described her as a former Sayville resident in earlier local coverage, underscoring how closely her early story remains tied to the South Shore community.

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