Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sarah Michelle Gellar chatted to Irish TV host Graham Norton on Friday, January 27. The 45-year-old actress sat down on the BBC chat show ahead of the release of her new Paramount+ series Wolf Pack, of which she is also executive producer.
A synopsis for the new series reveals: “A teenage boy and girl get their lives changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature. As the full moon rises, all teens come together to unravel the secret that connects them.”
This is, of course, not Gellar’s first stint in the world of supernatural dramas. One of her most prominent roles was that of the titular Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The series, which ran between 1997 and 2003 received universal acclaim but in recent years, has been the subject of some controversy. For more information on that, read on but first, lets look at Gellar’s marriage.
Read more: The Graham Norton Show: The Welsh woman who had a 'random' cameo
Who is Sarah Michelle Gellar married to?
Fans of the 2002 film Scooby Doo will be thrilled to hear that Gellar is married to her co-star, Freddie Prinze Jr. In the film, she played Daphne and he played Fred. However, this was not how the couple met.
Gellar and Prinze Jr. would actually meet when they filmed the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer. They wouldn’t officially become a couple then, however, and got together three years later in 2000.
The couple became engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico in September 2002. They have two children together, a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2012, and live in Los Angeles together.
In 2007, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze. She still uses her maiden name for professional work.
Sarah Michelle Gellar's response to Joss Whedon Buffy controversy
In 2021, a slew of allegations came out about Buffy showrunner Joss Whedon. Charisma Carpenter, an actress originally considered for Gellar’s role before being cast in a supporting part on the series and the spinoff Angel, accused Whedon of being “casually cruel” in a scathing Twitter statement. She claims Whedon created “hostile and toxic work environments”, was responsible for “ongoing, passive-aggressive threats” to fire her, and allegedly called her “fat” when she was four months pregnant. You can read more about that here.
Co-stars Amber Benson and Michelle Trachtenberg then shared their own claims on social media about working in an allegedly “toxic” environment on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Speaking to Vulture earlier this year, Whedon denied allegations of misconduct, denied calling Carpenter fat and said he would never intentionally humiliate anyone. He told the publication: "I yelled, and sometimes you had to yell. This was a very young cast, and it was easy for everything to turn into a cocktail party."
Whedon added he had some regrets about how he spoke with Carpenter after learning she was pregnant, adding: “I was not mannerly."
Responding to the controversy herself in 2021, Gellar said in a statement on Instagram: “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.”
Later commenting on the situation at a panel, Gellar confirmed: “I’ll never tell my full story because I don’t get anything out of it. I’ve said all I’m going to say because nobody wins. Everybody loses.” The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One at 10.40pm on Friday, January 27. For more TV and showbiz stories, subscribe to our newsletter here.
READ NEXT:
Merthyr presenter Katie Owen mocked for her Valleys accent at glitzy London awards bash
Dancing on Ice makes huge change to this weekend's show as they scrap skate-off
X Factor star 'nearly died' after birthday meal left him in intensive care
BBC The Apprentice's Karren Brady baffled as team continually miss 'clue' in shopping list task
