Charisma Carpenter is slaying rumors that she’ll be in the upcoming “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reboot.
The actor, best known for her role as Cordelia Chase on the original “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” series, took to TikTok this week to clear up swirling fan theories.
“I get asked this a lot: ‘Are you doing the reboot?’ And I thought I would address it,” Carpenter said in the video posted on Monday. “I am not in the reboot. I am not in the pilot. I don’t even know if the show has been picked up to go to series. I assume it will be.”
Carpenter first appeared on the show in 1997, portraying Cordelia, the sharp-tongued queen of the high school social scene who eventually found herself fighting demons in more ways than one. After three seasons on “Buffy” (and four more on its spinoff “Angel), her performance earned a loyal fan base — and some lingering hope that she’d return to the Hellmouth.
The reboot buzz intensified after Carpenter launched a rewatch podcast, “The Bitch Is Back!” — its title a nod to her famous line from the show’s third season. Some fans took that as a hidden message.
“It was not intended to sound coded in any kind of way, alluding to the fact that I was admitting to being in the reboot,” Carpenter said in her TikTok. “People were also then commenting, ‘Oh, is this... Are you saying...’ You know, like it was an Easter egg à la Taylor Swift. Not at all.”
Carpenter confirmed that she has “not had any conversations with the powers that be” to include her character at this point.
The creative powers behind the reboot notably do not include the show’s creator, Joss Whedon. In 2021, Carpenter made headlines when she accused him of being emotionally abusive on set.
“He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly,” she said at the time.
Now, the reboot is expected to bring a new chosen one to lead the next generation, with Sarah Michelle Gellar returning in a recurring role to satisfy fans’ nostalgia.