Charisma Carpenter Stands by Gal Gadot and Ray Fisher After Joss Whedon Profile

Charisma Carpenter, who starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, has fired back at former boss Joss Whedon after his lengthy comments in a New York Magazine cover story published earlier this week. After Whedon attempted to clear his name of allegations of misconduct aimed at him over the past year, Carpenter shut down his claims and stood in alliance with other actors who the filmmaker had mistreated.

Before the profile, Carpenter said Whedon called her “fat” when she was four months pregnant. Along with calling her “fat” on set, Carpenter also said that he threatened to fire her and made everyone vie for his approval. The creator responded, saying he “was not mannerly” around her, but that he was still shocked about her claims.

“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,” Whedon said. “I did not call her fat.”

The actress was quick to respond to the profile, slamming the TV personality for undermining her claims completely without any awareness.

“#IStandWithRayFisher,” Carpenter shared on Instagram, “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.”

The “malevolent force” and “bad actor in both senses” quotes reference those of Whedon’s in the original profile, both aimed at actor Ray Fisher. Fisher responded to both Carpenter and Whedon, firing away at the director for mistreating him on the set of Justice League.

“#IStandWithCharismaCarpenter,” Fisher similarly shared, “who (like this ‘bad actor in both senses’) has no agency in determining matters of abuse or race, but for the influence of a White male shadow puppeteer.”

Along with Fisher, Whedon took time to lay into Gal Gadot in the profile after she accused him of threatening her career, saying that she simply misunderstood the disagreement.

“I don’t threaten people. Who does that?” He went on to suggest that she simply misunderstood him because, “English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.”

Carpenter stood up for Gadot in a separate post to her social media accounts: “I believe Gal Gadot not only understands career threats in English but also in Hebrew and Arabic,” Carpenter fired back. “Possibly French, Spanish, and Italian too.”