Charisma Carpenter: Buffy/Angel Boss Joss Whedon Is ‘Still Unable to Be Accountable and Just Apologize’
Charisma Carpenter has weighed in on New York magazine’s Joss Whedon cover story, observing that her “former tyrannical narcissistic boss… is still unable to be accountable and just apologize.”
In a series of interviews conducted last spring, Whedon addressed allegations from Carpenter and other cast/crew from TV series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse, as well as claims made by Justice League film stars Ray Fisher and Gal Gadot.
Regarding the very specific allegations laid out by Carpenter in February 2021 — including that the prolific showrunner created “hostile and toxic work environments” — Whedon admitted that he was “not mannerly” but claimed he “did not call her fat” during her Angel Season 4 pregnancy. Further, Whedon suggested, “Most of my experiences with Charisma were delightful and charming. She struggled sometimes with her lines, but nobody could hit a punch line harder than her.”
Elsewhere in the 9,000-word New York profile, it was reported that “Whedon’s advocates” believe that Justice League actor Ray Fisher’s public attacks on the writer/director were an orchestrated part of some pro-Zack Snyder “campaign” that “poisoned Carpenter against Whedon, causing her to see the complicated story of their relationship as a simplistic narrative of abuse.”
Whedon told the mag that none of the claims Fisher had made in the media were “either true or merited discussing,” but rather the opinions of “a malevolent force. We’re talking about a bad actor in both senses,” he said.
Carpenter in her Tuesday response used sarcasm to mock that characterization of her susceptibility and sincerity, writing, “#IStandWithRayFisher, the ‘malevolent force’ and ‘bad actor in both senses’ who poisoned my feeble mind with trendy buzzwords and corrupt ideas about my experiences with a former tyrannical narcissistic boss who is still unable to be accountable and just apologize.”
Carpenter also stood up for Justice League‘s Gal Gadot, who last May had alleged that Whedon threatened her career while working on the superhero team-up film. “I don’t threaten people,” Whedon told New York, before suggesting that Gadot misunderstood something else he had said. “English is not her first language,” he stated, “and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.”
To that, Carpenter wrote, “I believe Gal Gadot not only understands career threats in English, but also in Hebrew and Arabic. Possibly French, Spanish and Italian too.”
You can read our previous synopsis of Whedon’s reactions to Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg and other former cast here.
Watching Joss Whedon try to be clever and weave his way through some plausible deniability is sad. As a life-long fan of his work, it’s gross to watch him turn a phrase and try to excuse behavior while gaslighting actors who don’t know each other and worked with him over the course of multiple decades. I think his statements actually expose his true nature, and that it lends MORE credibility to what people have said about him.
100% agree with you!
Are there people who worked with him who had god experiences? Sure. Probably many.
Does that mean he can still also have been abusive and the people who have come forward to share their stories are telling the truth? Absolutely.
His own comments in this NY / Vulture article certainly show what he is capable of.
Yep. A lot of people seem to forget that a lot of predators will have those around them that they’re friendly with and treat well. That’s a large part of how they’re able to fly under the radar for so long. Not all predators are going to look or act like the sleazy creep hanging out in the dark alleyway. Just because they were nice to a select group of people doesn’t mean they can’t be creeps to others. Many criminals are very good at balancing two very different sides of themselves.
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People have been saying since the start of the #MeToo movement that they want proof and evidence to back up these claims and accusations. Well, we’ve got multiple people saying this stuff about Whedon. We’ve got Whedon’s own damning words. There really should be no more debate at this point about how much of a creep he is.
Hitler was purportedly nice to children and animals.
True
Totally agree.
He has always had a rare skill with language, which is why so many fans idolized him and so many actors were eager to work on his shows, overlooking the ugly truth of his behavior.
But once enough other people start telling their own stories, clever excuses and deflections only dig the hole deeper. The only words that matter now would be a sincere mea culpa.
Well said. I loved Whedon’s work. But he’s revealed himself to be a truly awful human being.
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How he thought this interview would help his case, I’ll never know.
It really is the worst part of his reply. He thinks he can talk his way out of it, because his words have always gotten him out of his bad behavior, and he thinks he’s smarter than anyone else in the room. “I’m sorry you’re not all intelligent enough to understand my subtle grasp of the English language that none of you apparently possess…..is that a good enough apology?” He had a pretty awful public presence even before all this behind the scenes stuff came out. It’s not doing him nearly as much good as it sounded in his mind. Which has always been his problem.
Sadly, I have to agree. I was really hoping the article would permit me to dust off my old “Joss Whedon is My Master Now” tee shirt and wear it again, but I’m dismayed and am starting to think it is time to finally relegate it to use as a dust rag instead.
Separating the man from his work is increasingly difficult. I enjoyed so much of his TV stuff, that the revelation of what an unrepentantly despicable man he is is just nauseating.
So now in my head I give more credit to the production team, cast, and other writers than I did previously. Because I find it hard to believe that someone so toxic wasn’t saved from his worst excesses by other people.
I’m just thankful that my viewing habits no longer enrich him in anyway, as I think he lost his creative spark after Firefly was cancelled.
I remember at the time being shocked and bewildered at how Whedon took every opportunity to assassinate Charisma’s fan favorite Cordelia on Angel. Sure, his interactions with her were ‘delightful and charming.’ Must be why he continues to criticize her talent and throw shade as often as possible! Whedon apparently relishes being an arrogant bully.
I read the full article and i don’t think I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable reading an article on paper. The man is either in full on denial or is really a sociopath. He could have asked for forgiveness, admitting that he collapsed under pressure not having the maturity and right state of mind to act better…he got even worse at my eyes than before.
Even though the article seemed aimed to redeem him, it managed to put the final nail in his coffin.
Sadly I don’t think CC is ever going to get an apology, it’s abundantly clear from the interview that JW thinks everyone else is the problem.
Oh, I don’t know. 6-18 months of no one returning any of his calls and I can see a written by a lawyer apology statement with a lot of “I don’t know how I didn’t see the problem for so long” type stuff. And then I wouldn’t be surprised to see his next live public statement him backtracking on his written apology because it was forced on him by his agents and lawyers and how dare they make him apologize when he “did nothing wrong.”
It’s crazy how off-kilter this man’s responses to everything are. Mediocre White Man at its finest…
He doesn’t even try to refute or answer Carpenter’s claims; Fisher is just the stereotypical “malevolent” Black man who’s or to get a poor white victim; and Gadot is just an uneducated foreigner who can’t speak English properly and misunderstood.
Lol
Wer all forgetting it was a Woman that pushed for Buffy to be a show. She helped whedon get the series. So its ok to dissattach him from the shows
I believe JW gave her poor treatment during pregnancy when he had to produce 2 shows almost weekly and was likey at high-stress levels to get these shows done on time!
And her pregnancy was costing major issues and he had to find one way to write it in the show without hurting his season plans like It would be really hard to hide in the 90s with digital effects costing you your complete episode budget, the network most likely didn’t want to deal with it either… he clearly did warn her several times as well according to her own story!
So he ends up having to write her character (that he really loved according to serval interviews) out of the show… and I can imagine he was not happy with her that last few weeks…
He likely tried hard to come up with one random storyline without hurting his overall season plans. But it didn’t work for him and/or the network so he only had that one option left…
This same story has happened in Hollywood many many times! But this happened years ago, It’s not fair to judge this story by today’s standards… he didn’t do anything sexual to her it likely was just business that Charisma Carpenter took really personal and the hate over the years made these events play even worst in her memory.
If this same thing happened today he likely would have many more options… as he did in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Scarlett Johansson was pregnant, they were able to hide it and give her character still the screentime she deserves!
JW doesn’t deserve all this angry mod trying to destroy his career and in the way, things are with socials if he now makes one post that he feels accountable and really need to apologize for its like say I’m guilty and everything she says is 100% the true (even if the true is far less) and it gives the angry mod all the reason to completely destroy him and his current HBO show will suffer for it as well.
Making excuses for the guy may be fine for one thing, but Carpenter wasn’t the only one who had these problems with him. When so many people who worked for him on so many different projects, all come out to say the same thing, there is something very, very wrong with this guy. His interview sounds makes it clear that he needs some serious therapy because he doesn’t seem to get what he did wrong, or he just chooses to pretend that he doesn’t get it.
Did you actually read the interview? The full thing? Because it is damning on every level. His clear egomaniacal lack of any self awareness is glaring. Anyone who watched Angel back in the day and even had a small interest in fandom knew something was very very wrong with his treatment of the character. He’s clearly a man with very serious problems who has had them for a long time and made life for certain people in his orbit very uncomfortable and toxic. There’s way too much anectdotal evidence to deny his wrongdoing and general disgustingness.
This isn’t about the angry mob trying to destroy him. This is karma.
From a creative standpoint, JW’s handling of CC’s pregnancy could only be interpreted as revenge, even back then without all the BTS details. Cordelia & Angel were pretty close to admitting they were in love with each other. Having her get pregnant by some random ONS or even The Groosalugg would have been just another hitch in the road to Endgame. Having her get knocked up by his rapidly-aged teenaged son was a massive nail in their relationship coffin. The audience found it equally repulsive…he knew exactly what he was doing. Cordelia effectively turned heel in the worst way, so there wouldn’t be a groundswell of fan support to keep her around. I also suspect that it was another way to give the fans the finger for pushing for Spuffy.
Charisma’s pregnancy was a year or so after Jane Leeve’s in Frasier (best example I can think of off the top of my head from a similar time). The ‘got fat and had to go to a clinic’ storyline was gross but they didn’t fire her got getting pregnant. Even 20 years ago that was not common.
Yes it was a curve ball but that’s life. Sometimes plans have to change and it may not be the vision he had in his head (no pun intended) for the season but the ‘solution’ seems to have been borne out of malice for someone ‘challenging’ him.
And “he didn’t do anything sexual to her” disregards the fact it was sex-based discrimination. Yes it wasn’t sexual assault, but doesn’t mean it wasn’t misogynistic.
Is it alright to say he’s guilty? I think he is…….I mean he waited how long up until yesterday to finally answer? People come out the gate to defend themselves being accused of something they didn’t do. JW, him explaining his side had me SMDH. He’s really trying to excuse his behavior. Making it seem like he did NOTHING WRONG! That dude is straight TRASH. Plus he has the face of someone who would say something disrespectful & do some shady ish………😡 I don’t believe CC or anybody else like Gal or Ray would get an apology from that D-bag!
Charisma Carpenter’s brilliant and witty response to the ridiculous and pathetic attempts to portray her as a”feeble mind” that “a
malevolent force” was able to easily manipulate for the purpose of attacking Whedon states the situation far better than anything I could comment. I’m seriously wondering ,at this point,if Joss Whedon is mentally stable….the scenarios he is putting out trying to portray himself as the victim sound like fantasy script ideas.
LOVED her response. Especially the Gal Gadot part. The fact that this interview was from last spring is just so odd to me though. Why wait so long to publish it? Waiting to see if something more scandalous happens in the meantime?
With longer profile pieces like this, it can take awhile to go through the fact-checking process and to make sure you have a full and complete story. At my paper, we’ve run similar articles that took 2-3 years to report.
Charisma is the slayer now.
She always was and told buffy so
Reading people calling him a predator is such juvenile projection. Do you have idea what a predator is?
Being an a-hole and horrible person doesn’t make you a predator. I assure you, if you think Whedon is a predator you have never worked in Hollywood.
As an actor, I typically had things thrown at me by directors, was told I was too fat, had no talent, etc etc. Nothing Joss Whedon did or said rose above typical Hollywood b.s. It’s not narcissism. He’s repeating the same behavior that happened to him.
Most people who work at Target and KFC would love to be in her place on her worst day at work. For many of them, it would be better then how they are treated day in and day out. Who exactly are you helping by calling him out?
Who cares?
Why aren’t articles like these written actual rapists when a woman is raped every 15 seconds in the USA?
Being an asshole at work 20 years ago and insulting Gal Gadot does not mean he deserves all your glib and uninformed projections superimposed on his behavior. I guarantee 95% of the people reading this are worse than he is.
So, you say is unfair to judge him, while judging 95% of all of us? Precious.
Can’t be alone with a 16 year old girl and admits to a string of affairs and casual relationships with women who worked under him whilst married. Sounds like a predator to me.
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This “20 years ago” narrative that his followers keep throwing out is also utter utter BS. Justice League was 5 years ago and he’s only worked on one project since, which he has sionce left (The Nevers).
Hi Joss.
Something tells me one of the women he had an affair with was SMG. Her cryptic response to Charisma and Michelle’s claims and then her post on Instagram after the NY mag article was published makes me believe there’s a lot she isn’t saying and could be because she’s protecting herself as well.
Robia LaMorte (Jenny Calendar) also comes to mind. I can’t remember exactly what he said about his decision for doing so but the gist was that he was teaching her a lesson.
Don’t f with Queen C, what he did to carisma carpenter when she became pregnant was toxic AF. Massive buffy fan and remember watching angel during this time thinking what’s going on this not the charecter or even close to a good story arc.