Millennial Icon Michelle Trachtenberg Dies at Age 39

Michelle Trachtenberg has passed away at age 39. Her acting career made her an icon for Millennial girls.

For many years of my youth, Michelle Trachtenberg was my idealized mental image of self. It wasn’t simply that we were both fair-skinned, blue-eyed brunettes. Michelle Trachtenberg’s acting career took her to deeply relatable places just a couple years before I reached those points myself, and I looked up to her.

She started acting as a young child and starred in over 100 commercials. I didn’t become familiar until 1994, when she played the childhood best friend on Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Silly little weirdo Nona F. Mecklenberg wore a cast on her arm just because she liked scratching the itches.

In 1996, Trachtenberg played the titular character in Harriet the Spy – a girl who wants to be a detective and a writer. That same year, I had discovered the book, and I begged my mom to buy me a spy kit. I spent a full two years as a tiny detective. I was finishing novels not long after.

Yet the biggest impact my idealized-self had was showing up as Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As the youngest of three children, I was accustomed to hostility from older people who resented my existence. Buffy struggled with Dawn, and so too did a lot of Buffy fans. She was the baby sister of the entire fandom.

The experiences of actresses on Buffy weren’t great. Showrunner Joss Whedon was accused of abuse by Charisma Carpenter. Michelle Trachtenberg showed her support for Carpenter’s statements. On her own Instagram, Trachtenberg reported a rule where Joss Whedon wasn’t allowed to be alone with the underage actress.

Trachtenberg and I diverged after the delight of EuroTrip, which landed in my life exactly when I wanted a raunchy teen comedy. The way that she hung out as One of the Guys was exactly what I was doing at that age shortly thereafter.

When Michelle Trachtenberg left my entertainment life, I lost track of her entirely. It sounds like she had some struggles. Rosie O’Donnell, who costarred with her in Harriet the Spy, told Us Magazine: “I loved her very much. She struggled the last few years. I wish I could have helped.”

Going from a childhood in the brightly-colored nineties–with playground BFFs, Scholastic book fairs, and vampire daydreams–to an adulthood with turbulent health might be the most relatable thing of all.

As The New York Post initially reported, Trachtenberg needed a liver transplant last year. Trachtenberg’s mother found her dead in her apartment at 8a.m. on Wednesday. She was only 39 years old – just over two years older than me, ending the alignment of our lives, leaving no more opportunities for her to represent our shared experience.

Michelle Trachtenberg remains iconic for our generation. I’m not the only Millennial who feels like we lost a favorite classmate or childhood friend today.

Her final role was portraying villainous Georgina Sparks on the Gossip Girl sequel series in 2023. Her cause of death hasn’t been determined, but no foul play is suspected.

Author: SM Reine

Half-Tellarite SM Reine is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy. She’s been publishing since 2011 and a nerd since forever.

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