No bad blood here! After rumors swirled that Melissa Joan Hart was not a fan of Lena Dunham, the Sabrina the Teenage Witch alum is setting the record straight.
“So I don’t normally pay any attention to the … rumor mill but numerous friends have asked me about my ‘rivalry’ with @lenadunham and I’m truly confused,” Hart, 46, wrote via Instagram on Friday, November 11. “We have no ‘beef,’ and as far as I remember we haven’t even had the pleasure of meeting let alone having enough of a relationship to warrant any time to discuss drag queens.”
DeuxMoi shared a report several hours earlier that alleged the Drive Me Crazy actress “has it out” for the 36-year-old Girls creator, claiming the twosome had been “frenemies” for many years. According to the anonymous informant, Dunham’s father, Carroll Dunham, is close pals with Mitchell Kriegman, who came up with the idea for Hart’s Clarissa Explains It All. A second DeuxMoi tip further claimed that the former child star “dodged” questions about Dunham during an Instagram Live session earlier this month.
“I’m a fan of Lena’s work and all that she does to support females in our industry and hope to share a latte someday,” Hart concluded in her Friday social media post, denying the claims about the supposed feud. “Please be careful not to get caught up in the hateful rhetoric of these sites that promote division and spew crap to make a profit.”
The Catherine Called Birdy star, for her part, has not publicly addressed the rumored drama.
Hart initially rose to fame playing Clarissa Darling on Nickelodeon’s Clarissa Explains It All, which ran from 1991 to 1994. The sitcom also starred Sean O’Neal, Joe O’Connor, Elizabeth Hess and Jason Zimbler.
“With Clarissa, it was interesting because I was the same age as Clarissa. As she was growing up, I was growing up,” the Melissa & Joey alum recalled to The Ringer in August 2021 of her big break. “And we did have a lot of the same temperament, a lot of the same no-nonsense attitude [of] ‘if a boy can do it, I can do it.’ I wasn’t as tech-savvy. I did learn a lot from her. And vice versa. I put a lot of me into the character.”
She added at the time: “It was interesting to be on such a smart show. … Doing the show, I knew it was special. I knew it was a smart character. I knew it was a little different.”
Hart has come a long way since her child stardom, now raising three teenagers of her own.
“Whenever my mother is around and my kids yell, ‘Mom,’ I don’t answer. I literally look at my Mom and go, ‘Aren’t you going to answer them?’ She’s like, ‘I’m not their mom. They’re talking to you.’ And I still, after 15 years of being a mother, I still am like, ‘Who are they talking to?’” the My Fake Fiancé actress — who shares three sons with husband Mark Wilkerson — joked to Us Weekly exclusively in June 2021.
