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Melissa Joan Hart was a hot topic on talk radio this week after she revealed in a Wednesday interview with the Huffington Post the extent of the vitriol she encountered when she proclaimed last year she was voting for Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama.
“Can’t get too political in only 140 chac but for those asking, I’m voting #RomneyRyan,” Hart tweeted a year ago.
After the tweet, “I got called every name in the book,” Hart said on HuffPost Live, an Internet show. Video of the episode is below.
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She said some people said “they hope I die, and that they hope my children are gay, which was somehow supposed to be a sort of punishment. … The hate was really unbelievable.”
She said her tweet was meant to encourage participation in the election. “As a [member of the] Rock the Vote generation, I was told my vote counted, and I had to get out and do that,” she said.
In response to Twitter followers who were asking about the upcoming election a year ago, she said: “The night before the election, I said I’m voting Romney … all of a sudden I was the devil.”
Hart is best-known for her role as Sabrina on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch from 1996 to 2003, and currently stars on Melissa & Joey on ABC Family. She has been promoting her book, Melissa Explains It All, on various outlets lately. On Friday, the KABC radio morning crew in Los Angeles dedicated a segment to her HuffPo comments.
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Hart, in fact, has been asked before about reaction to her tweet. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, she accused Hollywood of intolerance toward nonliberals. “It is like a blacklist. It’s a little scary,” she said.
Hart is one of many who have leveled such charges. James Woods recently received a lot of attention by tweeting that he didn’t expect to work in Hollywood again because he is critical of Obama.
Clint Howard, an actor since 1961 and younger brother of filmmaker Ron Howard, warned conservatives in Hollywood to “be careful” during a Republican event two years ago. “I came out of the closet. In Hollywood, I certainly understand that’s dangerous,” he said.
At the same event, Morgan Brittany recalled how “everybody” bashed President Ronald Reagan when she was on the 1980s hit TV show Dallas. “I never said anything because I thought I’d lose my job,” she said. “I got to a point later on, after Dallas was over and I had my two children, that I said, ‘Enough is enough. I’m not going to be silent any longer.’ “
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On the other hand, Saturday Night Live alum Jon Lovitz said he wasn’t aware of negative side effects concerning his career after he called Obama a “f—ing asshole” for encouraging class warfare. “I’m getting other TV offers, I’m getting movie offers. There’s been no backlash because what I said is true,” Lovitz said six weeks after a recording of his rant hit the Internet. Hear the routine below.
There are also those who are on the fence about Hollywood’s treatment of conservatives in its midst. Dennis Miller, for example, has said on his radio show that his politics probably cost him work, though he said the opposite on The O’Reilly Factor.
E-mail: Paul.Bond@THR.com
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