The curse of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Troubled cast blighted by woes while cult legacy has been tarnished by claims of on-set abuse – as decision to scrap revival leaves Sarah Michelle Gellar ‘blindsided’

Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans were devastated last week when it emerged Hulu had suddenly scrapped plans for the upcoming reboot. 

Running for seven seasons between 1997 and 2003, the original show, set in the fictional Californian town of Sunnydale, followed teenager Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who attended school by day and hunted evil spirits by night. 

A reboot was announced in February 2025 and was due to star Ryan Kiera Armstrong as the new slayer, with Sarah reviving Buffy as a recurring character. 

Yet on Saturday it was announced that Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale, was no longer going forward – with Sarah and the reboot’s director Chloe Zhao said to be ‘blindsided’ by the cancellation. 

The axed reboot is the latest tragedy to befall the world of Buffy, which has seen the original cast blighted by personal woes and its legacy dampened by accusations of on-set abuse, and criticism of problematic storylines. 

So what went wrong in the Buffyverse? 

Nicholas Brendon’s addiction struggles  

The Buffyverse was made up of a slew of talented actors, yet after finding fame on the show several went on to battle their own demons. 

Notably Nicholas Brendon – who played Buffy’s best friend Xander Harris – struggled after leaving the series, checking into rehab for alcohol problems a year after the show came to an end.

‘After realising that I had a disease that was taking control of my life, I decided that the best way for me to regain my health was to enter a treatment facility,’ he said at the time. 

Just six years later, he returned to rehab after being tasered by police and charged with vandalism, resisting arrest and battery against a police officer. Afterwards, he pleaded no contest and was sentenced to probation and community service. 

In October 2014, he was arrested and charged with two misdemeanor counts: malicious injury to property and restraining or obstructing officers, in Boise, Idaho.

Police arrived at a hotel after reports of disturbance, and Brendon ‘showed signs of intoxication and repeatedly refused officers’ commands to stay seated while officers tried to speak to witnesses’.

When he was placed in custody, he reportedly tried to walk away. In a similar incident in February 2015, he was placed under arrest for allegedly drunkenly trashing a hotel room in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, following the breakdown of his marriage.

Two more arrests followed that year, one for allegedly flipping a hotel bed, smashing a porcelain figure, pulling the phone out of the wall and clogging the toilet, and another for public intoxication. 

Despite another stint in rehab, Brendon was again arrested later that year after grabbing his girlfriend by the throat, taking her car keys and smashing her cell phone in an attempt to stop her from leaving him.

He was then treated for 90 days in a treatment facility for depression, and told Dr Phil during an interview that he’d had ‘failed attempts at suicide’. 

And yet the spiral continued, with the actor being arrested in 2017 after allegedly attacking his girlfriend in a California hotel room. 

In May 2019, he was charged with domestic violence for the incident and was sentenced to three years’ probation. 

Nicholas also struggled with his health, suffering from a cardiac arrest in 2022. 

It prompted his second surgery in a matter of months, having recently gone under the knife for spinal surgery in 2021 to relieve his cauda equina.

The rare condition causes the nerves in the lower back to become severely compressed and can causes numbness in the lower body, and loss of bowel or bladder control. 

Yet in recent years, Nicholas seems to be feeling more settled, giving his fans updates on social media.  

In 2023, Nicholas reflected on his time on Buffy, sharing a throwback as he told fans: ‘Thank you for holding a place in your heart for the show for all of these years.

‘I’m just as big a fan as all of you and I miss watching it as much as I miss filming it.’

Emma Caulfield Ford’s health battles

Since her starring role as Anya Jenkins on Buffy, Emma Caulfield Ford went on to land parts in Life Unexpected, WandaVision and Agatha All Along. 

However, behind her successful career, Emma was secretly struggling with multiple sclerosis, choosing not to reveal her diagnosis until 2022. 

The actress, 52, revealed she was diagnosed in 2010 after waking up and feeling a sensation as if a ‘million ants’ were crawling on her face. 

Her acupuncturist and a neurologist initially believed she was suffering from Bell’s Palsy as a result of stress, with Emma telling Vanity Fair: ‘That was literally the year of hell for me. There was so much going on. Really bad personal life stuff. So I said, “yeah, that’s probably it.”‘

However, she later received a call from her doctor revealing it was MS, with Emma recalling: ‘It was literally a kind of nightmare… It turns out it was something major. Then I was like, “I’ve got to go to work now. What do I do?”‘

The performer, whose father also lived with multiple sclerosis, remarked that she had to do her best to work through the effects of the condition.

‘MS has been around in my sphere for a very, very long time…I knew enough to be like, “Oh, my God.” I’m trying to keep my s*** together and I’ve got to go back to work. So that was my first experience of keeping everything really quiet and showing up and just doing my job,’ she stated.

Emma added that despite her diagnosis she has no plans to slow down, referring to herself as a ‘worker bee’. 

She went on: ‘I didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to not hire me. There are already plenty of reasons to not hire people, reasons most actors don’t even know…I knew in my bones that if you talk about this, you’re just going to stop working.’

Michelle Trachtenberg’s tragic death

The Buffy family were left reeling last February after Michelle Trachtenberg’s sudden death at the age of 39 from complications caused by diabetes. 

After beginning her career as a child star, Michelle became a household name for her role as Buffy’s sister, Dawn Summers. 

She died just days after the Buffy reboot was announced, with sources telling the Daily Mail that she was in talks to revive her role. 

‘She was incredibly hopeful about it,’ a source told the Daily Mail. ‘Sarah Michelle obviously felt that the reboot would need her as much as it needed Sarah.’

They revealed that friends of the actress had been aware of her health issues and had hoped that her return to work could help her.

‘She was a pivotal role in the original and everyone was aware of her recent health struggles,’ the source said. 

‘They were hoping that, perhaps, casting her as Sarah’s sister in a reboot would help her overcome any issues she was having. She was not cast out by any means.’

According to a statement from the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Michelle died due to complications from diabetes mellitus. It was not immediately clear whether she had type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

In the months prior to her passing, Michelle had undergone a liver transplant. 

Joss Whedon abuse allegations 

While Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired its final episode back in 2003, it wasn’t until 18 years later in 2021 that allegations of ‘cruelty’ emerged against its creator, Joss Whedon. 

The allegations came about when Charisma Carpenter (who played Cordelia in Buffy) claimed on X/Twitter that Joss ‘abused his power on a number of occasions’ and that his behaviour intensified her ‘performance anxiety’ and worked to ‘disempower me and alienate me from my peers’. 

She said his creating a ‘toxic’ and ‘hostile’ work environment ‘triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer.’

According to the actress, Joss made ‘ongoing, passive-aggressive threats’ to fire her, and after she became pregnant, called her ‘fat’ to colleagues – later asking in a private meeting whether she was ‘going to keep it’.

The claim triggered an outpouring of similar allegations from other cast members, with Michelle Trachtenberg, telling of an onset ‘rule’ by which Joss was not allowed to be alone in a room with her. 

Amber Benson, who played Tara Maclay, added to Charisma’s claim, saying there was a ‘toxic environment’. 

She said: ‘There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later.’

Amber told Digital Spy that during filming for the finale of season five, Joss had pulled her aside to tell her: ‘Hey! Guess what? It’s so exciting! We’re going to kill your character!’

Backing her castmates, Buffy star Sarah also issued a statement via Instagram. She wrote: ‘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.’ 

Rumours also resurfaced that Joss had had romantic affairs with cast members, which were said to have contributed to his divorce in 2012. 

Addressing the allegations made against him by Buffy cast members, Joss acknowledged that he had not been as ‘civilised’ back then.

‘I was young,’ he said. ‘I yelled, and sometimes you had to yell. This was a very young cast, and it was easy for everything to turn into a cocktail party.’

He added in an interview he would never intentionally humiliate anyone. 

‘If I am upsetting somebody, it will be a problem for me. I know I would get angry, but I was never physical with people.’

He vehemently denied Charisma’s claim that he had called her ‘fat’ while she was pregnant. 

He insisted that he had no idea what Trachtenberg was referring to in regards the ‘rule’ about the two not being allowed in the same room together.

In the same interview, he said he felt ‘f*****g terrible’ about other claims made about affairs with female cast members. The director insisted he felt he ‘had’ to sleep with them and felt ‘powerless’ to resist. 

As early as 2017, four years before cast members spoke out about Joss, the director’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, accused him of pretending to be a ‘feminist’ to disguise his deception. 

The director has not worked professionally in the industry since 2021, and many from Buffy’s extensive fanbase have claimed the allegations have sullied the glittering reputation of the hit show.

Problematic storylines 

When it hit screens in the late 90s, Buffy was groundbreaking in many ways; it featured a female heroine who was skilled in martial arts to defeat ‘bad guys’, and Willow and Tara’s relationship was widely considered the first recurring female couple to appear on a TV series. 

However, as years have passed since the series aired, it has received more and more criticism over a lack of diversity in other areas; while also being slammed for promoting toxic masculinity in male characters – some of whom were presented as heartthrobs.   

Best friend and side-kick Xander, played by Nicholas Brendon, posed as the typical ‘nice guy’ but could scarcely walk the streets without ogling or pestering passing women. 

In one scene in the pilot episode, Buffy drops her books, to which Xander responds by saying ‘Can I have you? Oh I mean, can I help you?’, a demeanor he maintains throughout the show. Such behaviour has been criticised as anti-feminist by modern viewers of the show.

The overall depiction of female characters on the show has sparked furious debate among fans, with some branding the portrayals as sexist, while others say they are empowering.

Series six of the show (which was perhaps the most controversial among the fanbase) depicted two prominent female characters indulging in ‘evil’ behaviour after suffering tragedy as they went on vengeful rampages.

Such spiralling female characters led some to brand the writing as misogynistic; a criticism that the show’s creators addressed years later. 

Both lead show-runner Marti Noxon and Joss came under fire from fans over the portrayal of the characters; prompting Whedon to respond to such criticisms on a fan forum.

Taking to the Bronze Posting Board on the Buffy website before the age of social media, Joss admitted ‘mistakes’ in making the series, but insisted he did not ‘neglect’ female characters. 

Joss was further criticised by fans for a lack of diversity among the characters, with only a handful of people of colour ever appearing on the show (many of whom feature for only a brief time). 

Besides short appearances from Bianca Lawson, who played Kendra Young, Buffy’s shortlived fellow Slayer who was killed off in the second season after just three episodes; and Ara Celi, who played the Inca Mummy Girl in one episode of season two – women of colour were essentially non-existent.

Season seven brought a little more diversity to the cast when Potential Slayers, or slayers-in-training, were introduced into the cast – but it was right at the end of the show’s time on TV. 

Fans have also complained about one particularly shocking scene that left viewers horrified when it aired. 

Seeing Red, an episode in series six of the show, depicts a lovesick Spike (James Marsters) vying for Buffy’s affections as he begs for her forgiveness after sleeping with her friend Anya.

However, after tracking her down to a bathroom, Spike’s pining turns to violence as he attempts to rape his love interest when she pushes him away.

The 60 second scene, in which Buffy, screaming and crying, attempts to wrestle off a particularly aggressive Spike who wants to ‘make her feel it’, makes for deeply uncomfortable viewing and has been branded ‘toxic’ by fans on Reddit forums. 

For its contemporary audience, the scene was shocking. However as time has passed, it has become ever steeped in controversy for its portrayal of toxic masculinity and romanticising an abusive dynamic.

And it’s not just viewers who were left reeling by the scene. James, who played Spike, himself described filming the scene as a ‘personal hell’ and revealed it led him to seek therapy. 

Speaking on Miachael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, he said: ‘It’s a problematic scene for a lot of people who like the show. And it’s the darkest professional day of my life.’

He revealed the idea had spawned from a writers’ meeting in which people around the table were asked to draw on their own ‘dark secrets’ as inspiration for plots.

He said it had been a female writer’s idea to add the scene to the script, after she recalled an incident where she’d returned to an ex’s house after being dumped – in the hopes of sleeping with him to ‘fix’ their breakup. 

‘She kind of forced herself and he had to physically remove her from the premises, and that was one of the most painful memories of that time of her life,’ James continued. 

While he wasn’t comfortable with the plot, James insisted he was contractually obliged to go ahead with filming.

In a 2023 interview, the programme’s heroine Sarah, revealed she had re-watched the series that launched her career with her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr. and their children, Charlotte and Rocky – but they skipped Seeing Red.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, she said: ‘I have trouble with [season] six. It wasn’t appropriate for them at the time, and I just don’t want to re-watch it.’