Sarah Michelle Gellar hits out at Roblox after her son’s account gets hacked

Sarah Michelle Gellar has taken umbrage with Roblox after her son’s account was hacked, forcing her to cancel her credit card.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star, 46, took to Instagram on 4 December after her son’s Roblox account was allegedly hacked. Gellar - who shares son Rocky, 11, and daughter Charlotte Grace, 14, with husband Freddie Prinze Jr - shared a screenshot from her iPhone, displaying a notification that her iCloud account “has been disabled” in the App Store and iTunes.

“This is what I’ve been dealing with after my son’s @Roblox got hacked,” she wrote on her Instagram Story. “I had to cancel my credit card and now my life is basically cancelled.”

The Cruel Intentions actor added: “@Roblox Why don’t you have better parental help?!?”

Roblox is a widely-popular online game platform that “lets you play, create, and be anything you can imagine,” according to its description on the Microsoft Store. It allows players to customise characters and play minigames within the game. While Roblox is free to download on a number of platforms - including Android and iOS smartphones, Xbox game consoles, and Windows computers -  players can also spend money on in-game items and customisations. According to TechCrunch, its millions of users range between ages eight and 18, although its key demographic is between nine and 15 years old.

Many social media users on X, formerly known as Twitter, were surprised by Gellar’s unexpected feud with the online gaming platform.

“This is the most important beef of 2023,” one person said, in response to Gellar’s Instagram Story post.

“Buffy vs Roblox is where all this Millennial vs Gen Z discourse has been heading,” another user joked.

While one user agreed that “being hacked on Roblox is life ruining,” someone else wondered why Gellar’s 11-year-old son was using his mother’s credit card in the first place. “Oh please. That’s not that bad,” they said. “And I don’t know why parents let their children use their debit/credit cards on games, like, make them pay themselves!”

In a statement to The Independent, a Roblox spokesperson revealed the company is looking into Gellar’s complaint. “We are looking into this case and we reached out directly to the user to help. We are committed to ensuring that our users have a positive experience on the platform,” they said. “In partnership with safety groups, we’ve developed tools and resources like our Parent & Caregiver Guide and other helpful resources for parents to have conversations with their kids and teens about staying safe, spending controls and protecting their account. Our support team works with parents and users directly 24/7 and can be contacted with questions here,” they added, including a link to its support page.

The Scooby-Doo star isn’t the only celebrity to publicly call out Roblox’s parental controls. In the season one premiere of The Kardashians, Hulu star Kim Kardashian went head to head with Roblox after her son Saint discovered what claimed to be unseen footage of her 2007 sex tape with her ex-boyfriend Ray J.

Saint, eight, was playing Roblox on a family member’s iPad when an icon of Kardashian’s infamous crying face popped up on his screen. When he showed his mother the icon, she pulled the iPad away after reading that the Roblox minigame had been registered under the username “KimsNewSexTape”.

The billionaire business mogul later shared in the episode that she planned on “suing” Roblox for using her name and likeness for a game. “I have all the time, all the money, and all of the resources to burn them all to the f***ing ground,” Kardashian said, adding: “This is supposed to be unreleased footage from my old tape, this is the last thing I want as a mom, for my past to be brought up 20 years later.”

According to Polygon, the developer of the minigame was reportedly banned from the online platform when the episode aired in April 2022. In a statement to the outlet, a spokesperson from Roblox confirmed the existence of the game, but explained that the “referenced video was never available on our platform”.

“The referenced video was never available on our platform - we have strict moderation and policies to protect our community, including zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind which violates our Community Rules,” the spokesperson said. “The text reference to the tape that got around our filters was quickly taken down and fortunately visible only to an extremely small number of people on the platform. We also swiftly took down the associated experience and banned the community developer involved with the incident.”