‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’ Star Charisma Carpenter Accuses Joss Whedon of Creating “Hostile and Toxic Work Environments”

Charisma Carpenter is sharing her own “disturbing” experience working with Joss Whedon after Justice League actor Ray Fisher came forward with his own claims of abuse against the director this summer. Carpenter, who worked with Whedon on both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as Cordelia Chase, shared what she called “my truth” in an open letter on Twitter today detailing the toxic work environment she experienced on both sets of Whedon’s shows.

Carpenter claimed that Whedon “abused his power on numerous occasions” when she was working with him between 1997 and 2004, when Angel ended. Still, the experiences have continued to traumatize the actress “to this day,” she shared. “While he found his misconduct amusing, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, disempower me, and alienate me from my peers. The disturbing incidents triggered a chronic physical condition from which I still suffer. It is with a beating, heavy heart that I say I coped in isolation and, at time, destructively,” Carpenter wrote.

The Buffy star explained that hearing Fisher’s own experiences working with Whedon on Justice League — which included accusations of “gross” and “abusive” conduct by the director on set — she felt empowered to come forward with her own. “Joss has a history of being casually cruel,” Carpenter said. “He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly.”

In her letter, which was posted in two parts on Twitter, Carpenter recalled Whedon making “ongoing, passive-aggressive threats to fire me” and body-shaming the actress during her pregnancy. “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 shared.

While Carpenter struggled to communicate with Whedon about her pregnancy, when he finally got the news, he called her in for a sit-down meeting. “In that closed door meeting, he asked me if I was ‘going to keep it’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me,” Carpenter recalled. Once she had her baby, Carpenter was “unceremoniously” fired by Whedon the following season.

During her pregnancy, Carpenter was asked to report to set at 1 a.m., and eventually experienced Braxton Hicks contractions because of the “long and physically demanding days” and “emotional stress of having to defend my needs as a working pregnant woman,” she explained. “It was clear to me the 1:00 AM call was retaliatory.”

Carpenter described feeling “powerless and alone” in those days, but that therapy and the emergence of the Time’s Up movement have helped her see her situation differently years later. “It is abundantly evident that Joss has persisted in his harmful actions, continuing to create wreckage in his wake,” she wrote. “My hope now, by finally coming forward with these experiences, is to create space for the healing of others who I know have experienced similar serialized abuses of power.”

Amber Benson, who starred as Tara Maclay on Buffy, shared a message of support for Carpenter on Twitter with the hashtags #IStandWithRayFisher and #IStandWithCharismaCarpenter. “Buffy was a toxic environment and it starts at the top. [Carpenter] is speaking truth and I support her 100%,” she wrote. “There was a lot of damage done during that time and many of us are still processing it twenty plus years later.”

Read Carpenter’s full statement on Twitter.

Where to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer 

Where to watch Angel