Written by Chris Snelgrove | Printed 19 seconds in the past
It has been a really troublesome time to be a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Final 12 months, Michelle Trachtenberg, who performed Buffy’s sister, tragically handed away. Final week, Hulu formally canceled the revival of the TV present that was speculated to convey Buffy Summers again to the small display screen. Most not too long ago, Nicholas Brendon, who performed Xander Harris, handed away on the age of 54.
It did not take lengthy for his former Buffy co-stars to jot down memorial posts on social media platforms comparable to Instagram. Some had been higher than others, however everybody operated in their very own manner. However as somebody who has been following the Xander actor since earlier than his dying, I am troubled by a secret that followers do not actually wish to speak about. As you realize, Nicholas Brendon hated Sarah Michelle Gellar, and he made a sequence of very disagreeable and really public claims about her within the days earlier than his dying.
Zeppo’s final journey
This took the type of Fb, the place Nicholas Brendon went dwell on March 14, lower than every week after his premature dying. The video now appears much more surreal, with Brendon continuously shifting backwards and forwards in his rocking chair (he had an important ardour for rocking chairs) whereas coughing violently. He blamed it on cigarette smoke and at one level joked that his voice appeared like Bane. Through the 45-minute video, he mentioned a number of elements of Buffy the Vampire Slayer earlier than immediately and unexpectedly leveling numerous accusations towards lead actor Sarah Michelle Gellar.
The feedback started innocuously, with Nicholas Brendon saying, “I do not suppose the present ought to have ended that manner.” However he quickly singled out Sarah Michelle Gellar, claiming, “She labored actually exhausting, however in a manner, she tousled the present.” Particularly, he stated, “She advised everybody that she began the sequence too late and was leaving. Chris Snellgrove Joss [Whedon] We weren’t prepared for that… It was unfair to the workers, the solid, and the present. ”
Shocking protection of canceled icons
Talking of controversial showrunners, Brendon seems to have been one of many final Buffy actors to overtly assist Joss Whedon. On this identical Fb video, he argued that Hulu ought to by no means have tried to reboot Buffy with out Whedon’s involvement. Nonetheless, Whedon quietly retired from public {and professional} life after a number of allegations that he created a hostile work surroundings and was personally poisonous to the solid. After Charisma Carpenter, who performs Cordelia, made a sequence of damning accusations about Whedon, she obtained public assist from different Buffy actors, together with David Boreanaz, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Though Brendon has not usually criticized Geller publicly up to now, many took his continued protection of Whedon as an oblique criticism of her. For instance, the Buffy Summers actor issued a brief and easy stand of assist for Charisma Carpenter, writing, “I stand with all survivors of abuse.” Brendon, then again, supported Whedon and minimized the allegations towards him, claiming they had been simply “bullish cancel tradition.”
In that creepy Fb video moments earlier than his dying, Brendon did not mince phrases. Along with persevering with to totally assist Whedon, he additionally criticized Gellar for desirous to give up Buffy the Vampire Slayer after season seven. Geller beforehand claimed he wished to go away the present as a result of he was bodily and mentally exhausted. She wished to take pleasure in life together with her new husband (Freddie Prinze Jr.) and felt there was nothing new in her character. It additionally did not assist that, like many Buffy followers, she actually hated season 6.
Say goodbye to your childhood hero
Sadly, Brendon noticed her departure as a private assault on his meal ticket. In a way, he was proper. After Buffy ended, he did not get any main roles. However maybe this was not resulting from his talent as an actor, however to the very public drug and alcohol habit he suffered from. By all accounts, Gellar has at all times supported Brendan, and Brendan’s struggles date again to Buffy. Nonetheless, that assist didn’t stop him from in the end seeing Brendon as an enemy.
All this provides to the tragedy of Nicholas Brendon’s premature dying. His profession was at its peak a long time in the past, and he was clearly upset that Sarah Michelle Gellar left the present, prematurely ending his largest position thus far. Given sufficient time, Brendon might have joined an try to reboot Buffy the Vampire Slayer sooner or later. However now he was taken from us too quickly, and in a horrifying flip of occasions, he died hating the lady who helped make him well-known.
