Actress Michelle Trachtenberg explained on Thursday about allegations earlier this week that her boss “Buffy and Vampire Slayer” engaged in abusive behavior on his “toxic” set.
Trachtenberg made new cryptic allegations against the show’s creator Joss Whedon, 56, in an updated Instagram post: “The last one. Comment I will make on this. Was. There was a rule. Saying. She is no longer allowed to enter the room alone with Michelle “, wrote the 35-year-old.
The actress was 15 years old when she took on the role of Dawn Summers, the younger sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s “Buffy”, which she played between 2000 and 2003. Trachtenberg, who later appeared in “Gossip Girl”, it did not go into explicit detail about what led to the alleged rule – or who implemented it.
Trachtenberg’s claims come after Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase, posted statements about the alleged onset of Whedon’s “toxic” and “hostile” behavior. She also claimed to have called her “fat” in an individual meeting when she was pregnant.
“Joss Whedon abused his power several times while working on the set of Buffy Vampire Slayer and Angel,” said Carpenter, 50. wrote. “Although he found his misbehavior funny, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, to disapprove and alienate me from my colleagues. The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. With a heavy heart, I say that I managed in isolation and sometimes destructively ”.
Trachtenberg first appeared after Gellar, 43, responded to Carpenter’s viral post in a statement on Instagram, along with “abuse survivors.”
“Although I’m proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be associated forever with the name Joss Whedon,” Gellar posted. “… I am with all the survivors of the abuses and I am proud of them because they spoke.”
Trachtenberg first responded to Gellar on Wednesday, writing, “Thank you @sarahmgellar for saying that. I’m brave enough now as a 35-year-old woman … to play this. Because. This must. Be known. As a teenager. With his inappropriate behavior … very. Not. According. ”
Representatives for Whedon – who currently works for “The Nevers” for HBO – did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
Wunderkind in the industry first experienced a wave of negative press and blamed social media noise after his ex-wife, architect Kai Cole, accused him of cheating in a harsh online essay for The Wrap in 2017.
Cole accused the director of “multiple affairs” in connection with their 15-year marriage – and claimed that the first of those alleged trifles was on the set of “Buffy”.
“He hid several businesses and a number of inappropriate emotional issues he had with his actresses, co-workers, fans and friends, while he remained married to me,” Cole wrote.
“He deceived me for 15 years, so that he could have everything he wanted. I thought, everyone thought, that he is one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage and to the women he worked with. “
A thriving closure of the Whedon fan site after 15 years, amid claims of Cole’s bomb, including her statement that “I see now how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so so that no one would question her relationships with other women or research her writing like anything but feminist. ”
Whedon and Cole met in 1991 and married in 1995, a year before production began on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” a seminal TV show centered on a powerful female hero who was often hailed as a series. defining feminist.