Michelle Trachtenberg, the actress known best for her roles in Harriet the Spy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gossip Girl, was found dead in a Columbus Circle residence on Wednesday morning. Sources said she had recently undergone a liver transplant and that her death is not currently being investigated as suspicious, according to the New York Post and a New York City-based ABC affiliate. She was 39 years old.
Trachtenberg’s career began three decades ago after she played the titular role in the 1996 Nickelodeon film, Harriet the Spy. She went on to earn career-defining roles in television series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer where she played Dawn Summers, the precocious little sister to Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Gossip Girl‘s most formidable foil, Georgina Sparks. She also starred in EuroTrip, Ice Princess, and 17 Again.
Memorably, Trachtenberg and Gellar not only stood in solidarity with Buffy co-star Charisma Carpenter’s claims of abuse perpetrated by the show’s creator, Joss Whedon, but Trachtenberg herself alluded to being a victim of Whedon’s abuse. In 2021, when Carpenter came forward, Trachtenberg claimed there was a rule that she was not to be left alone with Whedon.
When Gellar wrote that she stood “with all survivors of abuse and am proud of them for speaking out,” on Instagram, Trachtenberg commented: “Thank you @sarahmgellar for saying this. I am brave enough now as a 35 year old woman….To repost this. Because. This must. Be known. As a teenager. With his not appropriate behavior….very. Not. Appropriate.”
“What he did was very bad. But we win. By surviving!” she added.
In recent years, Trachtenberg’s health had garnered public concern. Recent posts on Instagram led some fans to remark on her weight and wonder if she was unwell or possibly abusing drugs. Last January, she responded to the speculation, writing that she was “happy and healthy” and had not undergone any plastic surgery. On her last birthday in October 2024, Trachtenberg posted an old photo with the caption: “39 and I’m feeling fiiiiiine.” Trachtenberg regularly posted on the app in the lead-up to her untimely death.
Innumerable tributes to Trachtenberg have taken over Twitter with “Harriet the Spy” trending in the immediate aftermath of the news. “39 is so young. Michelle’s work raised a whole generation of millennials. Harriet the Spy, Ice Princess, Gossip Girl. This is so sad,” wrote one user. “Michelle Trachtenberg was a 2000s icon, between buffy, Harriet the spy, gossip girl, ice princess….a devastating loss,” tweeted another.
