Michelle Trachtenberg, known for her roles on TV series Gossip Girl and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died at age 39.
Police sources, speaking to the New York Post who first reported the tragic news, as well as ABC News, said Trachtenberg’s death is not being treated as suspicious.
Police responded to a 911 call shortly after 8 a.m. on Wednesday at a luxury residential tower in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood where “officers observed a 39-year-old female unconscious and unresponsive,” according to an NYPD statement.
Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. No foul play was suspected and the New York Medical Examiner is investigating the cause of death, police said.
A cause of death was not immediately known. Representatives for Trachtenberg did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Sources told ABC News she recently underwent a liver transplant and may have been experiencing complications.
FILE – Michelle Trachtenberg and Sarah Michelle Gellar arrive at the “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” reunion, part of the 25th annual William S. Paley Television Festival held at the Arclight Cinemas on March 20, 2008 in Hollywood, California.
Jean-Paul Aussenard / WireImage
Trachtenberg was 8 when she began playing Nona Mecklenberg on Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete Nona from 1994 to 1996 and then starred in the title role in the film adaptations of Harriet the Spy and Inspector Gadget, opposite Matthew Broderick.
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“Michelle comes off as genuine because she really is a genuine kid. Everyone can identify with her,” said Debby Beece, president of Nickelodeon Movies in 1996.
In 2000 Trachtenberg joined the cast of Buffy, playing Dawn Summers, the younger sister of the title character played by Sarah Michelle Gellar between 2000 and 2003.
Trachtenberg thanked Gellar for speaking out against Joss Whedon in 2021, following abuse allegations made against the Buffy showrunner. “I am brave enough now as a 35-year-old woman to repost this,” she wrote on social media, and alluded to “his not appropriate behavior” she experienced as a teenage actor.
In 2001, she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for hosting Discovery’s Truth or Scare. Trachtenberg went on to recurring roles on Six Feet Under, Weeds and Gossip Girl, where she played the gang’s scheming nemesis, Georgina Sparks.
As if to cement herself in millennial culture, Trachtenberg made a cameo in Fall Out Boy’s music video for the This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race alongside Seth Green.
Her other credits included Ice Princess in 2005 — playing a math prodigy and aspiring figure skater — and the 2004 teen sex comedy EuroTrip. She co-starred with Zac Efron and Leslie Mann in 2009’s 17 Again.
For Killing Kennedy, the 2013 film in which she played the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, around 80 per cent of Trachtenberg’s dialogue was in Russian. She had learned the language from her mother growing up.
Other credits included supporting roles in the films Mysterious Skin in 2004 and Black Christmas in 2006. She also starred on the NBC medical series Mercy (2009–2010) opposite Taylor Schilling. More recently, she hosted the true-crime docuseries Meet, Marry, Murder on Tubi.
As of this writing, no memorial or funeral plans have been announced.
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— With files from The Associated Press’ Mark Kennedy
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
