‘Buffy’ Alum Eliza Dushku Praises “Powerful, Painful” Claims By Charisma Carpenter Of Abuse By Joss Whedon

Yet another veteran of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has publicly offered support for Charisma Carpenter after her allegations yesterday of abuse and “misconduct” by Joss Whedon on the supernatural series.

Like Carpenter herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, and Emma Caulfield, Eliza Dushku took to social media today to tell her co-star “I admire, respect, and love you.” In her Instagram post, the actress who played Faith on Buffy and its Angel spinoff said that she found Carpenter’s tale of Whedon’s “casually cruel” conduct to be “powerful, painful, and painted a picture we’ll never collectively never un-see or un-know” – as you can see below.

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CAA and other reps for Avengers director Whedon have said nothing about the claims by both Carpenter and Trachtenberg, who damningly alleged Wednesday of “not appropriate behavior” by the Buffy creator towards her when she was a “teenager” on the 1998-2003 series.

In a later re-editing of her initial post, Trachtenberg added: “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.” The remark of “a rule” by the actress implies that others knew of Whedon’s allegedly inappropriate interaction with the then minor and had set up a safeguard to prevent a repetition of the occurrence – a new turn in this already twist tale. BTW, Whedon and Trachtenberg share legal representation in powerhouse firm Ziffren Brittenham

Unlike Trachtenberg and her other co-stars, the ICM Partners repped Dushku had a post Buffy professional relationship with Whedon on the shuddersome Dollhouse, which ran on Fox for two seasons starting in 2009.

While having said nothing about wrongdoing by Whedon herself, Dushku made allegations of sexual abuse by True Lies stunt coordinator Joel Krammer in 1994, when the actress was 12 years old. Accused of similar impropriety by others, the former stunt double to Arnold Schwarzenegger denied the claims that Dushku made in 2018. Later that same year, after Les Moonves had been booted from his CBS perch, it was revealed that Dushku was secretly paid $9.5 million in early 2018 over claims she was retaliated against and written off Bull for complaining about sexual harassment by lead Michael Weatherly on the set of the prime time drama.

“It’s time for us to …say, “No, we’re going to stand in our truth, we’re going to stand in our power,'” Dushku told me in a 2019 interview with Deadline.

Carpenter and Trachtenberg’s claims, plus Benson’s tweet of a “toxic environment” at Buffy, follows months and months of allegations from Justice League actor Ray Fisher of Whedon being “gross, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable” to him and others on the set of the Warner Bros superhero flick. That situation apparently came to a sputtering end on December 11 when the AT&T-owned studio put out a statement cryptically asserting their “investigation into the Justice League movie has concluded and remedial action has been taken.”

WarnerMedia never revealed what that action was, but soon afterwards, as he made more accusations of enabling against DC Entertainment president Walter Hamada and his predecessor Geoff Johns, Fisher was canned last month from a role as Cyborg in the forthcoming Flash movie.

Fisher tweeted his own POV on Carpenter, who had participated in the WB Justice League probe, earlier today:

The actor will appear in original Justice League director Zack Snyder’s cut of the 2017 film due to debut on HBO Max on March 18.

For Whedon, the producer was shown the door on his own The Nevers series by HBO last November. “We have parted ways with Joss Whedon. We remain excited about the future of The Nevers and look forward to its premiere in the summer of 2021,” a spokesperson for the premium cabler said at the time.

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