Michelle Trachtenberg, Star Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer And Gossip Girl, Dies Aged 39

Millennial star of film and television Michelle Trachtenberg has died at just 39 years of age, it has been confirmed. The actor, who rose to fame as the child star of Harriet The Spy before going on to enjoy success in major hits including Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, and EuroTrip, was found dead at her New York City home by her mother this morning, as per The New York Post's reporting. The cause of Trachtenberg's death is unknown, though sources have noted that she had recently undergone a liver transplant.

Born in New York City on 11 October, 1985, Michelle Christine Trachtenberg was born to be on the screen — almost literally. At the ripe old age of just three, a toddler Trachtenberg made her first television appearance, in an ad for Wisk laundry detergent. And by the time she was six, the budding actor had already fulfilled a New Yorker rite of passage, appearing in the second season of legendary Big Apple police procedural Law & Order. Heading into the mid nineties, Trachtenberg picked up regular, name roles on both Nickelodeon sitcom The Adventures Of Pete & Pete and ABC soap All My Children, the latter of which would give Trachtenberg opportunity to work with another rising young talent — one Sarah Michelle Gellar. It would not, of course, be the duo's last shared rodeo.

Both The Adventures Of Pete & Pete and All My Children served as the perfect proving ground for Trachtenberg's feature film starring debut in 1996's Harriet The Spy. Sharing the screen with veterans such as Rosie O'Donnell and Eartha Kitt, Trachtenberg more than held her own as the titular pre-teen PI. A sort-of proto-Mean Girls (complete with what is ostensibly its own Burn Book), the movie has long since been recognised as a peak 90s comfort watch among millennials, and a large part of what makes it endure is the sensitivity and surprising maturity a then-ten-year-old Trachtenberg was able to bring to her first lead role.

Having moved from New York to California as a teen, Trachtenberg continued to bolster her status as a household name in the late nineties as a series regular on short-lived sci-fi sitcom Meego, Matthew Broderick's niece Penny in family-friendly blockbuster spy caper Inspector Gadget, and alongside Ralph Macchio in supernatural rom-com Can't Be Heaven. And then, at the turn of the millennium, Trachtenberg found herself reunited with All My Children co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar when she landed the role of Buffy Summers' kid sister Dawn in the fifth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which by that time was already her own favourite TV show.

Michelle Trachtenberg appeared in every last episode of Buffy's final three seasons while continuing to maintain her status as a prominent feature in the millennial movie canon. The early 2000s saw Trachtenberg rack up roles in cult comedy classic EuroTrip, Gregg Araki's Joseph Gordon Levitt and Brady Corbet (yes, The Brutalist filmmaker Brady Corbet) starring queer drama Mysterious Skin, and Disney sports dramedy Ice Princess. Ice Princess in particular, which sees Trachtenberg play a science prodigy with dreams of becoming a champion figure skater, is one of the lesser-cited great teen movies of the mid-00s, a real showcase of its star's ability to effortlessly switch lanes between comedy and drama — to turn, as her character Casey Carlyle does, the stuff of formula into something beautiful.

Further small screen success came for Trachtenberg in 2008 when she took on the role of hissable socialite Georgina Sparks in Gossip Girl, causing utter carnage for all of her peers and offering unto the world the immortal line, "You can tell Jesus that the bitch is back!" Somewhat poignantly, Trachtenberg's last screen credit came in the Gossip Girl revival three years ago, where she did duly bring the bitch back one last time in tremendous fashion, proving that she still had it and then some. Just three weeks ago, when the Buffy The Vampire Slayer reboot was announced, the actor took to Instagram to tease a potential comeback for Dawn Summers, cryptically posting "Something wicked this way comes....." as fans flocked to the comments to share their excitement.

Never one to shy away from her struggles, in recent years Trachtenberg opened up about her experiences with bullying as a child, excavating her own personal trauma in the public sphere to try and help empower those who may be facing their own battles. Just before Valentine's Day in 2020, the star took to Instagram to share how fame at an early age led to cruel treatment from her classmates growing up. Despite what she had endured however, Trachtenberg touchingly wrote "I write this to every child, teen, person, out there who is bullied. You are something. Do not put your value in someone else. Not letting them win, is your win." She went on to pay tribute to the educators who'd shepherded her through school and nurtured her creative pursuits, writing how she would remain "grateful for life."

Michelle Trachtenberg was a major fixture in a whole generation's formative years, playing strong female characters who were unafraid to be funny, to be goofy, to speak their mind, and to have — and pursue — their dreams. She will be remembered as a magnetic screen presence, a woman loved and respected by her creative collaborators and fans alike, and as a star who left us far too soon but whose body of work will live on. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with her friends and family at this difficult time.