How Did Prue Die In Charmed And Why Was Her Death Controversial For Some Fans?

Thanks to its availability on various streaming services, the late '90s and early '00s supernatural drama "Charmed" is finding something of a second life in the present day. As new viewers will inevitably find out, series lead Shannen Doherty left the show after the Season 3 finale, in which her character Prue Halliwell dies.

In that episode, Prue and Piper (Holly Marie Combs) attempt to protect Dr. Griffiths (Matt Malloy) from a demon named Shax (Michael Bailey Smith, who once played Freddy Krueger). They take the brunt of a powerful attack while defending Griffiths and both appear down for the count by the episode's cliffhanger ending. In Season 4, Episode 1, Leo Wyatt (Brian Krause) manages to save Piper, but Prue ends up dead.

To this day, some fans are adamant that the show drops off in quality after Prue's death. For example, in a Reddit thread about the subject, u/joffreestarr wrote, "I personally think [Prue] had such complexity and depth, as well as a bond with her sisters that the team struggled to replicate in the later seasons."

Comments by users like u/Ctblibx and u/Stefhanni likewise argue that Prue's death marks a departure from a close sisterly bond that defined the show in its earlier seasons. Of course, Prue was also some viewers' favorite character, meaning they simply lost interest without her. For a variety of reasons, then, Prue's death wasn't received very fondly by "Charmed" fans and affected a significant number of viewers' opinions of the show.

Between Seasons 3 and 4, when Shannen Doherty left "Charmed," the show was still a big hit, meaning plenty of outside observers were curious why she walked away from what must have been a lucrative gig. A statement at the time claimed that Doherty wanted to move on in her career, though rumors of a deep on-set conflict between Doherty and Alyssa Milano soon surfaced.

Eventually, in December of 2023, Doherty corroborated those rumors and truthfully discussed for the first time exactly why she had to leave the show in an episode of her podcast "Let Me Be Clear" with guest Holly Marie Combs. During the episode, Doherty revealed that she was actually fired from "Charmed." Since she was fired previously from her role on "Beverly Hills 90210," her team floated the story that she left of her own volition so as not to develop a bad reputation.

Behind her firing was indeed a dispute with Milano, which Doherty attributes to jealousy over promotional materials spotlighting Prue over Milano's character Phoebe Halliwell. Allegedly Milano threatened to sue if the producers of "Charmed" didn't fire Doherty, so they acquiesced and Doherty lost her job.

Between the "Charmed" Season 3 finale in 2001 and this podcast episode, fans could only speculate about the reasoning behind Doherty's exit, adding an extra layer of controversy to Prue's already contentious death.