Buffy's Michelle Trachtenberg says Joss Whedon wasn't allowed to be in a room alone with her

Following Buffy The Vampire Slayer actor Charisma Carpenter’s detailed Twitter statement about Joss Whedon’s abusive on-set behaviour posted on Wednesday, her co-star Michelle Trachtenberg is using social media to share a story of her own. Trachtenberg has reshared Buffy lead Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Instagram post in which Gellar told her fans that while she remains proud of her time as Vampire Slayer, she doesn’t want her name forever associated with Whedon’s. In reposting the message, Trachtenberg thanked her co-star for her words while adding that she finally felt courageous enough to talk about her own experience, too.

“Thank you @sarahmgellar for saying this,” wrote Trachtenberg. “I am brave enough now as a 35 year old woman....To repost this. Because. This must. Be known. As a teenager. With his not appropriate behavior....very. Not. Appropriate. So now. People know. What Joss. Did.

The last. Comment I will make on this. Was. There was a rule. Saying. He's not allowed in a room alone with Michelle again.”

Carpenter’s statement, which opened the floodgates for further accusations, is itself a follow-up to earlier claims of on-set abuse made by Justice League actor Ray Fisher. "Last summer, when Ray Fisher publicly accused Joss of abusive and unprofessional behavior toward the cast and crew during reshoots on the Justice League set in 2017, it gutted me,” she wrote. “Joss has a history of being casually cruel. He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly."

Fisher, who played Cyborg in the DCEU, was fired from The Flash after speaking out about Whedon’s on-set toxicity. On Twitter he thanked Carpenter for joining him in making these stories public. “Charisma Carpenter is one of the bravest people I know,” wrote the actor. “I am forever grateful for her courage and for her lending her voice to the Justice League investigation. Read her truth. Share her truth. Protect her at all costs.”

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While not all of Whedon’s former collaborators have come forward with stories of abuse, some have spoken out to say that they believe and support their former co-stars. Eliza Dushku, who had a small role on Buffy and played the lead in Whedon’s sci-fi series Dollhouse, sent a public message to Carpenter on Instagram.

"CC, my heart aches for you and I'm so sorry you have held this for so long," she wrote. "Your post was powerful, painful, and painted a picture we'll collectively never un-see or un-know. I frequently think of the saying, 'we are as sick as our secrets. Our secrets indeed make and keep us sick. What I'm learning more and more — and have personally found most valuable — is that profound healing can only come from naming and disclosing what actually happened, the necessary first step (once someone's ready) to freeing ourselves from our secrets, untold truths which have kept us isolated, ashamed, and held hostage." Dushku added that the kind of abuse and toxicity that Whedon is accused of is an “epidemic” in the industry, adding that silence only enables and emboldens abusers.

Anthony Head, another Buffy cast member, said in an interview with ITV that he was gutted to realize he didn’t know about Whedon’s mistreatment of his co-stars. "This is not a man saying, 'I didn't see it so it didn't happen,'" he explained. "I am gutted. I'm seriously gutted because one of my memories — my fondest memory — was the fact that it was so empowering. Not just with the words in the script, but the family feel of the show."

Whedon, who has often been credited with creating “strong female characters,” seems in retrospect to have used his reputation as a feminist as cover for the way he treated some of his most vulnerable colleagues. Having recently withdrawn his involvement from forthcoming HBO show The Nevers, he has yet to make a statement about the accusations he faces. 

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