Cordelia, Tara, Spike, and Buffy all come out publicly against Joss Whedon: UPDATE: as have Anja and Dawn.
The lead in Buffy, Sarah M Geller, voiced support for Carpenter in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which read: ‘While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon… I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.’
Fellow castmate Amber Benson, who played Tara on Buffy, echoed Carpenter’s sentiments, writing: ‘Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. @AllCharisma is speaking truth and I support her 100{3549d4179a0cbfd35266a886b325f66920645bb4445f165578a9e086cbc22d08}. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later.’
‘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 continued. ‘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.’
Whedon has not yet responded to the allegations made by Carpenter. Carpenter claims Whedon would regularly make ‘passive-aggressive’ threats to fire her throughout the filming of the two shows, which she said ‘wreaks havoc on a young actor’s self-esteem.’
The actress further alleged that Whedon would ‘callously’ mock her and call her fat to other members of the cast and crew when she was four months pregnant, despite weighing just 126 lbs, she said.
‘He was mean and biting, disparaging about others openly, and often played favorites, pitting people against one another to compete and vie for his attention and approval,’ Carpenter continued of Whedon.
She claimed in one instance Whedon called her in for a sit-down meeting to ‘interrogate and berate’ her regarding a tattoo she had gotten during filming to help her cope with ‘a volatile work climate that affected me physically.’
Carpenter has previously accused Whedon of writing her character off Angel during its fourth season back in 2003 because he was ‘upset’ she had gotten pregnant. During Season 4, the character of Cordelia turns ‘evil’ and eventually ends up in a coma, never to reawaken. Once eventually informed, Carpenter said Whedon requested a one-on-one meeting with her, in which he allegedly asked her, ‘[Are you] going to keep it?’
‘He proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me the following season once I gave birth,’ she claimed.
The lead in Buffy, Sarah M Geller, voiced support for Carpenter in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which read: ‘While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon… I stand with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out.’
Fellow castmate Amber Benson, who played Tara on Buffy, echoed Carpenter’s sentiments, writing: ‘Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. @AllCharisma is speaking truth and I support her 100{3549d4179a0cbfd35266a886b325f66920645bb4445f165578a9e086cbc22d08}. There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later.’
Nasty little creatures, gammas. Give them even a modicum of power and it inevitably goes right to their egos. And the creatures that obtain power in the Hellmouth are among the worst.