Sarah Michelle Gellar Shares Poignant Tribute To Late 'Buffy' Costar Michelle Trachtenberg On Her 40th Birthday

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans continue to mourn the loss of Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn Summers. The actress passed away last February at just 39 years old.

On what would have been her 40th birthday, October 11, Sarah Michelle Gellar—who starred as Buffy—posted a heartfelt tribute featuring a GIF from the Season 5 episode “Blood Ties.”

Gellar’s caption, set to Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” read:

“When you turned 16, it was hard not to still see you as the little girl I met on All My Children. When you turned 21, I had to teach myself to not see you as the little sister anymore…”

Michelle Trachtenberg began acting at age 3 and landed her breakout role as Lily Benton Montgomery on All My Children in 1993, when she was just 8 years old. Around the same time, Sarah Michelle Gellar appeared on the same series as Kendall Hart from 1993 to 1995—a role often credited as a formative step in her rise to stardom.

A New York City native born on October 11, 1985, Trachtenberg remained on the soap until 1996. Around the same time, she appeared in Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete and made her feature-film debut in Harriet the Spy.

As a child actor, Trachtenberg became a familiar face on television. In 1997, she received a Young Artist Award for CBS’s Meego and later played Penny Brown in Disney’s Inspector Gadget. Her most memorable TV role came in 2000, when she appeared as Dawn Summers—Buffy’s mystical, fiercely loyal younger sister on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Gellar closed her birthday tribute with:

“I can’t imagine what 40 would have been like. This I know… it would be filled with love. Happy birthday @michelletrachtenberg.”

Fans may recall that the GIF Gellar shared is from the emotional episode where Dawn discovers she is the Key, runs away before Buffy finds her, and reassures her that they will always be sisters. That sentiment, fans noted, now feels achingly true beyond the show.

You can see the birthday tribute here:

On February 26, Trachtenberg was found dead in her Manhattan apartment. She was 39. According to the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, the Ice Princess star died from complications of diabetes.

Following her passing, Gellar shared a series of throwback photos of the two over the years. In some, they’re joined by co-star Seth Green; in another, Trachtenberg cradles Gellar’s baby daughter in her arms.

Gellar captioned that post with a message that broke fans’ hearts:

“Michelle, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I will always love you. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. I will be brave. I will live… for you.”

You can view the emotional post below:

Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow on Buffy, also paid tribute on Instagram and captioned:

“I am deeply saddened by the news of Michelle’s passing. She brought a loving energy to the set of Buffy. My thoughts are with Michelle’s family and friends.”

Trachtenberg’s other credits included starring roles in Eurotrip (2004), 17 Again (2009), and her fan-favorite turn as Georgina Sparks—Serena van der Woodsen’s manipulative frenemy—in the original Gossip Girl. She later reprised the role in the Gossip Girl reboot, which aired through 2023.

Fans echoed Gellar’s birthday sentiments in the comments:

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While Gellar has spent much of the past year honoring her late co-star, she has also been preparing to revisit the world that made them both household names.

On August 7, she was spotted on the Los Angeles set of Hulu’s upcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale—the working title of the long-awaited reboot. The 48-year-old actress, dressed in a red mini dress and stilettos, looked every bit the iconic Slayer once more.

Gellar told Vanity Fair:

“For so many years, I said no to a possible return of the series. I didn’t want to reintroduce something we had already seen. I waited for the right time to come. Then Chloé [Zhao], a big Buffy fan, proposed the project to me, and I accepted.”

The actress added that Zhao’s version will be “lighter than the last few seasons of the original.” She confirmed that Star Wars: Skeleton Crew star Ryan Kiera Armstrong will play the new lead character, with Gellar appearing in a recurring role.

According to Deadline, Armstrong’s character is named Nova—short for “new” in Latin—a fitting symbol for a series that continues to evolve while honoring the memory of those who shaped and slayed for it.