The chickens are coming home to roost for Joss Whedon as several Buffy The Vampire Slayer cast members are accusing him of misconduct.

Joss Whedon has made himself out to be a feminist champion of sorts over the course of his long career in Hollywood. However, it appears that Whedon’s empire is rapidly crumbling in just a few short years as now he’s been accused of misconduct by several cast members of his iconic TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Charisma Carpenter, who appeared in both Buffy and its spinoff Angel, took to Twitter with a two-part message accusing Whedon of creating “hostile and toxic work environments since his early career.”

The actress detailed her experience working with Whedon on Buffy and Angel, alleging that he “abused his power on numerous occasions” and recalling several instances of alleged abuse, such as “passive aggressive threats” to fire her, calling her “fat” to colleagues when she was four months pregnant, being “mean and biting, disparaging openly,” and “pitting people against one another to compete and vie for his attention and approval.”

Carpenter references Ray Fisher several times in her message, captioning her tweets with #IStandWithRayFisher and writing how she felt “gutted” when the Justice League actor publicly accused Whedon of “abusive and unprofessional behaviour” during the filming of the 2017 superhero blockbuster.

She states how she participated in the WarnerMedia’s Justice League investigation because she believes Fisher and that his firing from the film was “the last straw” for her.

Following Carpenter’s tweet, several other Buffy cast members responded in support of the actress.

Buffy leading star Sarah Michelle Gellar shared a post on Instagram stating that while she’s “proud” to be associated with the character of Buffy Summers, she doesn’t “want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon.”

After writing that she “will not be making further statements at the time,” she concludes her message by stating that she will “stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.”

Amber Benson tweeted in support of Carpenter, writing “Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. [Charisma Carpenter] is speaking truth and I support her 100%. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later.”

Michelle Trachtenberg shared Gellar’s Instagram post on her own profile and wrote in the caption: “Thank you [Sarah Michelle Gellar] for saying this. 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.”

It may all seem like a sudden turn of events for Joss Whedon, this has been bubbling under the surface for years and it’s taken the misconduct accusations from several prominent figures from the Buffy cast and beyond for it to be blown wide open.

This all started back in 2017 when Whedon’s ex-wife penned an essay on The Wrap alleging that he is a “hypocrite preaching feminist ideals” and accused him of 15 years of multiple infidelities. Whedon subsequently responded via a spokesperson, stating that the essay contained “inaccuracies and misrepresentations.”

While that essay didn’t have as big of an impact as hoped initially, it wasn’t until 2020 when Ray Fisher publicly spoke out about Whedon’s “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behavior toward the cast and crew on Justice League (via Variety) that things started happening.

These accusations subsequently led to an investigation into Fisher’s claims from WarnerMedia, which concluded without many details being released other than “remedial action has been taken” (via Variety).

Whedon has yet to issue a statement in response to the Buffy cast’s allegations at the time of publishing.

Seems like that whole “woke feminist hero” image Joss Whedon has spent decades cultivating is rapidly crumbling in the wake of these misconduct accusations from the Buffy cast.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine