Actress Michelle Trachtenberg elaborated on Thursday the allegations earlier this week that her boss “Buffy and the Vampire Slayer” was involved in abusive behavior on her “toxic” set.
Trachtenberg made the new cryptic allegations against show creator Joss Whedon, 56, in an updated Instagram post: “The last one. Comment I will make on that. Was. There was a rule. Saying. He cannot be alone with Michelle again, ”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”, who she played from 2000 to 2003. Trachtenberg, who later appeared in CW’s “Gossip Girl”, did not enter in explicit detail about what led to the supposed rule – or who applied it.
Trachtenberg’s allegations come after Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia Chase, posted allegations of Whedon’s allegedly “toxic” and “hostile” behavior. She also claimed that he called her “fat” at an individual meeting when she was pregnant.
“Joss Whedon has abused his power on several occasions while working on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel sets,” Carpenter, 50, wrote. “Although he found his inappropriate conduct amusing, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, weaken me and distance myself from my colleagues. The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition that I still suffer from. It is with a heavy and beating heart that I say that I faced in isolation and, sometimes, destructively. “
Trachtenberg first appeared after Gellar, 43, responded to Carpenter’s viral post in an Instagram statement supporting “survivors of abuse”.
“Although I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be associated with the name Joss Whedon forever,” Gellar posted. “… I am with all survivors of abuse and I am proud of them for speaking.”
Trachtenberg responded to Gellar for the first time on Wednesday, writing: “Thanks @sarahmgellar for saying that. I am brave now as a 35 year old woman … To pass this on. Why. This should. Be known. Like a teenager. With your inappropriate behavior … a lot. Inappropriate. “
Whedon representatives – who are currently working on “The Nevers” for HBO – did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.
The industry prodigy first experienced a wave of negative media and social media buzz after his ex-wife, architect Kai Cole, accused him of cheating on a hard-hitting online article for The Wrap in 2017.
Cole accused the director of “multiple cases” because of his 15-year marriage – and claimed that the first of these alleged flirtations was on the “Buffy” set.
“He hid several cases and a series of inappropriate emotional cases that he had with his actresses, co-workers, fans and friends, while he remained married to me,” wrote Cole.
“He cheated on me for 15 years to have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to the fight for women’s rights, committed to our marriage and to the women he worked with ”.
Whedon’s thriving fan site was shut down after 15 years amid Cole’s bombastic claims, including his statement that “Now I see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so that no one would question his relationship. with other women or examine her writing as something other than feminist. “
Whedon and Cole met in 1991 and were married in 1995, a year before production on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, a seminal TV show centered on a strong heroine who was often hailed as a defining feminist series.