HIGH STAKES
Where Buffy The Vampire Slayer cast are now – from saucy photoshoot row to shock affair with legend’s mistress
WITH blood-sucking baddies, age gap romances and lesbianism, it was the supernatural series that packed a lot of bite.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer earned cult status among fantasy fans but a lot has happened since it first aired 25 years ago.
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Recently Nicholas Brendon, 51, who played Xander Harris, was rushed to hospital after suffering a second “cardiac incident” in a year.
His sister revealed the health scare happened two weeks ago but confirmed he’s “doing fine now”.
The news shocked fans, who saw snaps of the star on a stretcher wired up to hospital machines.
It’s not the only trouble to blight the stars of Buffy. From scandalous affairs to saucy snaps that went wrong, criminal convictions and one tragic premature death, we reveal what happened next to the cast.
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Lingerie snap backlash
Playing Buffy Summers helped turn Sarah Michelle Gellar into a Hollywood leading lady.
She went on to bag roles in Cruel Intentions, Scooby Doo, The Grudge and Scream 2.
She also made various TV cameos including in The Simpsons, American Dad, Sex And The City, Star Wars Rebels and The Big Bang Theory.
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Away from the cameras, the 45-year-old has been married to Freddie Prinze Jr - who played Fred in the Scooby-Doo films - for a decade and has two children, Charlotte and Rocky.
In 2018, Sarah came under fire when she shared saucy lingerie shots on Instagram and said she would put the snaps around her house “as a reminder not to overeat” on Thanksgiving.
Eating disorder groups claimed her comments voiced damaging thoughts about food and glamourised being "skinny", and she later apologised.
Last year, Sarah joined a number of actors who called out Buffy creator Joss Whedon for allegedly creating a “toxic” environment and verbally abusing cast - which he has adamantly denied.
On 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.”
Booze battle
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After playing loveable Xander in Buffy, Nicholas Brendon’s life took a turn for the worse as he fought a lengthy battle with alcoholism and depression.
The 51-year-old has been arrested multiple times for offences including vandalism, theft, property destruction, drug use and violence.
Nicholas has had multiple rehab stints - including after domestic violence cases.
Last year Indiana police found several bags containing "crystal/powder residue" in his car, including some in secret compartments, after he was pulled over for driving erratically.
Nicholas, who has been divorced twice, played Kevin Lynch in Criminal Minds and appeared in limited-release films including Big Gay Love and Coherence.
The star's sister linked his recent heart issues to spinal surgery in 2021 and claimed he suffered similar problems after the operation.
Drug addiction and sexual assault claims
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Eliza Dushku was just 16 when she landed the role of slayer Faith Lehane and had to seek legal emancipation to work the long hours required.
Already a successful child actor, she went on to work on movies including Bring It On, in 2000, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, before reuniting with Joss Whedon on the TV series Dollhouse.
But she struggled with drug and drink abuse from the age of 14 and, at one point, admitted her addiction became so severe her brother banned her from seeing her young niece.
She has now been clean for over a decade.
In 2018, Eliza publicly accused stunt coordinator Joel Kramer of molesting her when she was 12 and working on the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies.
She claims that after an adult friend confronted Kramer, Eliza was injured in a stunt, breaking several ribs. Kramer denied the accusation of sexual misconduct.
In 2019, she was given an £8m settlement by CBS after being sacked from the TV series Bull over her allegations that the lead, Michael Weatherly, behaved inappropriately.
Weatherly was filmed making comments about spanking Dushku over his knee, soliciting a threesome and alluding to sexual assault in his "rape van" but after she complained to producers she was fired.
Weatherly publicly apologised for the comments.
The 41-year-old actress is married to businessman Peter Palandjian and they share two sons, Philip, three, and one-year-old Bodan.
Sex line shame
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Alyson Hannigan was surprised to land the part of nerd-turned-powerful witch Willow Rosenberg because her audition was “terrible” and she forgot all her lines.
Fortunately, it led to other big roles including Lily Aldrin in How I Met Your Mother and band geek Michelle Flaherty in the American Pie franchise.
However, her part in the coming-of-age sex comedy films often leaves her cringing when fans quote her line: “This one time at band camp, I stuck a flute in my p****.”
Alyson regularly has to interrupt them mid-sentence because she’s “terrified” of having to explain what the sex act is to her two daughters.
The 48-year-old is married to Alexis Denisof, who was also in Buffy, despite him initially turning her down because he didn’t want to date a co-star.
Scandalous affair
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David Boreanaz played Buffy’s main love interest Angel, a vampire turned private investigator, and even got his own eponymous spin-off.
He went on to star in the music video for Dido’s 2003 hit White Flag and played Seeley Booth in the drama Bones for 12 years.
In 2010, David’s personal life came under scrutiny when it emerged he had an affair with Tiger Wood’s alleged mistress Rachel Uchitel.
The 52-year-old's wife Jamie Bergman was pregnant with their second child at the time but he claimed it saved his marriage.
He told TV Week that she was initially “angry” but the fling served as “a bonding experience in the long run”.
David has continued to act, including in the military drama SEAL Team, and runs the nail polish business Chrome Girls with his wife.
Film flops before Marvel hit
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For five years Emma Caulfield, now 49, played Anya Jenkins - a vengeance demon who became human.
She provided comic relief due to her character being so blunt and also having a fear of rabbits.
After Buffy, she starred in a few film flops before returning to TV in the shows Prime Suspect, Once Upon A Time, Robot Chicken and most recently Marvel’s WandaVision, last year.
Away from the cameras, she ended her four-year marriage to Cornelius Grobbelaar in 2010 and six years later, gave birth to a daughter with now husband Marke Leslie Ford.
Adopted his niece
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James Masters played Spike, who had one of the show’s most dramatic transformations - from seasoned vampire slayer killer to Buffy’s ally, love interest and saviour.
However, he claimed creator Whedon was “frustrated” by the peroxide blond bloodsucker's popularity because he wanted to kill him off and, in one instance, allegedly pushed him against a wall and yelled at him.
Later, the 59-year-old spoke out when Torchwood star John Barrowman apologised for indecently exposing himself on TV sets.
James admitted “I’ve seen his penis”, but while he didn’t believe it “made anyone feel uncomfortable” he described it as "inadvisable".
In his personal life, the actor divorced Liane Davidson, the mother of his 26-year-old son, in 1997.
Six years later he adopted his niece, who's now a maths PhD student, but the star rarely talks about her due to her disinterest in fame and show business.
Last year, James' decade-long marriage to Patricia Rahman came to an end - the divorce was filed for shortly before their 10th wedding anniversary.
Risque Playboy shoot
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Charisma Carpenter’s character Cordelia Chase was a popular but shallow student at Sunnydale High before she decided to help Buffy in her quest to rid the world of evil.
After being killed off, she appeared in another supernatural show, Charmed, as well as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Sons Of Anarchy, and two Expendables films as Lacy.
In 2004, she was photographed nude for Playboy and said it was a bid “to feel desirable and sexy” having gained weight while pregnant with her only son, Donovan, then two. She also said it was “a good financial move”.
Charisma, who was in AskMen’s Top 99 Most Desirable Women list twice, was married for six years until 2008.
Last year, the 52-year-old accused Whedon of being “casually cruel” and “abusing his power” on Buffy, including firing her from spin-off Angel when she became pregnant, which he strongly rejected.
Famous daughters
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Anthony Head played the all-knowledgeable Giles, a watchful mentor and father figure to the vampire slayer.
After the show, he starred in Little Britain, Silent Witness, Spooks, Netflix hit The Stranger and a number of films.
The 68-year-old, who lives in Somerset, has been married to animal whisperer Sarah Fisher for 40 years and has two actress daughters.
Daisy has appeared in the film Underworld: Blood Wars and Netflix's The Sandman and Emily starred in The Inbetweeners and Emmerdale.
Religion row
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Seth Green starred as guitar-playing teen Daniel ‘Oz’ Osbourne, who for a time was Willow’s boyfriend and later discovered he was a werewolf.
He went on to appear in a range of TV hits from That ‘70s Show to Sesame Street, How I Met Your Mother, The Simpsons and Star Wars spin-offs
The 48-year-old’s played Dr Evil’s son in Austin Powers and voices Chris Griffin in Family Guy and Howard The Duck in Guardians Of The Galaxy.
Seth has been married for 12 years to actress Clare Grant, who he worked with on the shows Robot Chicken, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Holidays.
On multiple occasions, the star has taken flack for comments about religion including that God is “a myth created over time to deny the idea that we’re all responsible for our own actions”.
Hit teen show
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Buffy’s sister Dawn Summers was played by Michelle Trachtenberg and after the series, she went onto another big show aimed at teenagers.
She played Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl for five years until 2012 - and earlier this year, it was confirmed she will star in the second season of the show’s revival.
Michelle, 36, also made claims about Whedon acting inappropriately on set in 2021 - he did not respond to her allegations.
Premature death
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Robin Sachs played Ethan Rayne - a wizard who was the sworn enemy of Giles because he helped out demons on an 'odd-job' basis.
Away from Buffy, he took parts in Ocean’s Eleven and sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest, which co-starred Sigourney Weaver and Tim Allen.
The actor, who was twice divorced, sadly died from a heart attack four days before his 62nd birthday in 2013.
Small screen bitparts
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Tom Lenk played two parts in Buffy - a vampire named Cyrus and Andrew Wells, a demon summoner who eventually turned good.
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After the show, the 46-year-old reunited with former co-star Alyson in How I Met Your Mother and had a number of small parts in the films Date Movie, The Number 23 and Transformers.
Since then, he’s appeared in TV shows Bones, NCIS: New Orleans, American Horror Story, Batwoman and currently stars in a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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