SHE was best known for Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl but Michelle Trachtenberg actually made her first screen appearance in a nappy ad when she was just 16 months old.
The tragic actress – who has died at the age of 39 – later revealed the toll being a child star had on her life, after going on to appear in over 100 TV adverts before getting her big break.
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Long before she hit the big time with Buffy, Michelle was the face of Wisk washing powder – at the age of three.
But during her awkward teenage years Michelle was mocked, humiliated and routinely bullied at school by her “cruel” classmates over her screen fame.
She later revealed that she was left with scars following one particularly vicious incident when she was “thrown down stairs and slammed into lockers head first”.
Michelle told how she suffered a “really, really terrible time in school” and did not go to college as a result of the way she was treated by scores of brutal bullies who she described as “terrible, tortuous and evil”.
As a brave anti-bullying campaigner, she went on to share other humiliating experiences she endured at Notre Dame High School in Los Angeles.
Fellow pupils hurled food at her so often at lunchtime that eventually she had to eat alone in a different classroom.
And things turned even uglier for young Michelle at a party she hosted to celebrate her 8th grade graduation when she was 14.
At one point during her own bash she went to the bathroom and, when she came out, found that no one was in the house.
All the guests had fled, and gathered in the front garden where they waited to taunt her – led by the boy she had a crush on at the time.
She added: “Back in my day, all the kids had to write a bulls*** Valentine’s Day card to everyone in the class. I never got one, on purpose.
“No one ever gave me one and they thought I didn’t need the attention.
“The kids and staff all laughed and thought everyone else should get one, being an actress since I was three, apparently I didn’t need one.”
“No one gave a thought I was helping my family pay bills. I was just the girl on the TV, it was just that their kid wasn’t on TV.”
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Toxic set
Michelle was left so shaken by her distressing experiences at school that she decided against going to college.
Athough she became a household name playing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sister in Buffy, she later added her voice to disturbing allegations that she and other young female co-stars had been bullied by their director.
They later spoke out about having endured a toxic environment on set.
Michelle revealed how director Joss Whedon was vile to all the young actresses and said his behaviour got so bad that eventually he was banned from being alone in the same room as her.
He was described as “casually cruel” and accused of “hostile and toxic” behaviour which triggered “a chronic physical condition” in co-star Charisma Carpenter – and he often made writers cry.
Whedon denied the allegations made by Michelle and disputes Charisma’s version of events as well.
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Michelle went on to play villain Georgina Sparks in teen TV drama Gossip Girl – alongside Blake Lively and Leighton Meester.
And the height of her fame, she was being linked to a string of Hollywood heartthrobs.
Michelle’s first famous boyfriend was Canadian actor Shawn Ashmore who she met in 2004. But the couple split abruptly in 2006.
She moved on from her romance with Shawn and started dating Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz.
Their relationship fizzled out fast and she was soon spotted having dinner with with actor Jason Segel at exclusive celebrity hangout Chateau Marmont in early 2009.
Michelle was also linked to other famous faces including actor and singer Josh Groban and the American rapper Kid Cudi.
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In 2019 she started dating her 63-year-old talent agent Jay Cohen.
The couple stayed together for several years and in 2020 she sparked excitement among her fans by posting a fake engagement announcement.
She shared a selfie wearing a huge diamond ring with the caption ‘I picked the right one.’
After her followers took the bait, she admitted it had been a ploy to urge them to vote in the US presidential election.
“Now that I have your attention,” she wrote. “I know @joebiden @kamalaharris and I will be very happy together. #vote.”
The pair never addressed whether they were actually engaged but were believed to still be together when she was tragically found dead yesterday, in her New York apartment.
The actress had a long battle with failing health and had recently undergone a liver transplant.
Sources close to the actress have claimed that she could have died from natural causes following the operation, ABC affiliate KFSN reported.
Ed Westwick, who played Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl, shared a picture of the actress during her days on the show and said he was “so sad.”
“Sending prayers,” he wrote on Instagram.
Rosie O’Donnell, who starred in Harriet the Spy, said Trachtenberg’s death is “heartbreaking,” according to People.
“I loved her very much. She struggled the last few years,” she said in a statement. “I wish I could have helped.”
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