Tragic Details About Eliza Dushku's Life

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The following article includes allegations of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

An accidental stumble into the film industry made Eliza Dushku one of the leading faces of teenage-oriented projects in the early 2000s. As a breakout cast member of "Bring It On" and the teen bombshell in "The New Guy," Dushku went on to juggle numerous appearances in television shows such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Tru Calling," and "Dollhouse." Her slew of opportunities continued well into the next decade, with voice credits in video games, animated shows, and more. 

For most, her success meant that she'd become one of Hollywood's prominent figures. This, however, came to a halt once she distanced herself from the industry she once thrived in. While her disappearance was followed by drastic changes in her life, like earning a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling, her plethora of struggles came to highlight a celebrated acting career. With much of the success Dushku garnered in Hollywood, she also experienced a similar amount of tragedies. Whether it was becoming another victim of misbehavior by various film directors and TV producers, or her personal issues with both her physical and mental well-being, Dushku not only became a pillar for those who've had similar struggles, but also became a figure who turned their tragic lows into triumphant highs. To learn more about her heartbreaking life story, here are several tragedies that have plagued Eliza Dushku's life in the public eye.

As a child actor, Eliza Dushku quickly stumbled upon a massive breakout role in the 1994 film "True Lies." Portraying the fictional daughter of the highly popular Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, who was in the midst of a stunning transformation, solidified her name in Hollywood. Unfortunately, this came at a price. Though we weren't privy to this knowledge early on in her career, Dushku penned an eye-opening statement on Facebook in 2018, detailing her experience on the set of "True Lies." Her confession came at the height of the #MeToo movement, when several women spoke out about their experience with sexual violence within the entertainment industry. Dushku was one of many who accused other Hollywood producers of following suit. "When I was 12 years old, while filming 'True Lies,' I was sexually molested by Joel Kramer, one of Hollywood's leading stunt coordinators," she wrote.

She later described horrific details of their encounter, which included Kramer, 36, luring a 12-year-old Dushku to his Miami hotel room and making sexual advances toward her against her will. While Dushku confided in an older peer following the incident, the situation only grew worse during her time filming, and she sustained broken ribs in a "stunt gone wrong." "Why speak out now? I was 12, he was 36. It is incomprehensible," she said. "Why didn't an adult on the set find his predatory advances strange — that over-the-top special attention he gave me?"

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Finding success as early as Eliza Dushku did is likely enough to get you ostracized by your peers. While she had a strong support system that included her mother and three brothers, it was a sobering moment whenever her acting gigs came to a close and she had to return to her normal life in Boston. This, however, was coupled with classmates who grew resentful of her opportunities as she continued to pursue further big screen aspirations.

In a 2011 interview with Blast Magazine in promotion of her performance voicing Catwoman in the animated "Batman: Year One," Dushku briefed the publication on her upbringing in Massachusetts as the typical "boy's girl." This persona was not only a result of growing up with three boys, but it was also a result of the bullying she faced in public school. "After I fell into the film and television business, I went back to public school in Boston, and kids didn't think it was that cool. So I had to kind of fight for my street cred," she quipped. "And so I adopted this sort of hard exterior and got in a couple fights." Though she'd joke about her "tough Boston chick" persona, it would became detrimental to her well-being in the long run.

In 1998, Eliza Dushku joined the cast of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," portraying Faith Lehane. Her performance was memorable, and her storyline in Season 3 quickly became a notable highlight of the show. Through the show's success, however, each of the "Buffy" cast members had their own fair share of tragic details that have plagued their lives. Aside from Sarah Michelle Gellar's critique of the toxic on-set environment, Dushku gave us some insight into how her gig on "Buffy" impacted her personal life. 

In an archived 2001 interview with King Size, Dushku noted that, at the height of her success on "Buffy," Faith's popularity reached the likes of those incarcerated. While receiving fan mail isn't necessarily a bad thing on paper, it crossed a line when the prisoners detailed explicit desires to the young actor, as well as sharing unsolicited photos for her to sift through. She not only detailed the letters she received to the publication, but also expressed her discomfort with grown men writing her. "What are the authorities thinking of, playing a show with young teenage girls to death row inmates?" she said. "They write everything — disgusting things you don't even want to know about. And they send me pictures. 'Oh, here's a picture of me before I was incarcerated!' and there's some guy sat on the sofa with a bottle of beer and a mustache, and a big gut. It's so creepy. Way more creepy than Buffy."

In the midst of Eliza Dushku's upbringing and her ever-toughening exterior, her budding acting career kept disrupting her personal life. She grew up in a Mormon household, and her fictional counterparts often went against her family's religious values. It didn't help that she already had a strained relationship with Mormonism after getting kicked out of Mormon camp due to her admission of seeing two men kiss, which, according to her 2012 interview with Politico, ultimately turned her away from the religion altogether. "My problems with the church have to do with its stance on homosexuality, and other things," she said.

None of this was as harsh, however, as her strained relationship with her grandmother, who wasn't too fond of her appearing partially naked for some of her more mature roles. When asked about her family's take on her career during her 2005 interview with New York magazine, Dushku spoke about her grandmother demonizing her representation on-screen while also giving Dushku the silent treatment. "My grandma did try to call Michael Ovits when I was represented by his company, telling them, 'My 17-year-old granddaughter is naked on the television!'" she recalled. "She didn't talk to me for a couple of weeks."

Given Eliza Dushku's success, she often kept her struggles in Hollywood private. One of these was a growing drug and alcohol problem that got out of hand throughout her personal life. Dushku unveiled this secret during an impromptu speech at the 2017 New Hampshire Youth Summit on Opioid Awareness. In her powerful speech, Dushku stated that she had her first experience with drugs when she was only 14. "I loved the first time I took a drug because I loved the way it made me feel. I loved the way it made me not feel — I didn't have to feel. ... It was fun — and I loved it — until it wasn't," she recalled. "You know, drugs didn't love me. They didn't love my family. They definitely didn't love my friends that died." 

Her addiction became such a focal point in her life that it took her brother's distrust in her to fully commit to facing her abusive behavior with substances. "I remember my brother telling me he didn't want me to be around my niece because he didn't trust me," she said. "I'm a really good auntie today. But you know what? He was right. I'm a good person, but when I did drugs and I drank, I didn't make good decisions." Luckily, Dushku overcame her addiction and ever since, she's made the transition to a completely sober lifestyle.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Along with her personal struggles, Eliza Dushku kept most of her dating life out of the public eye, which in most cases, was either based on rumors or extremely brief. Her most notable relationship came in 2009 when she was romantically linked to retired basketball player Rick Fox. Dushku and Fox remained an item for the better part of the early 2010s, and even had conversations about marriage. 

Tragically, however, the two would drift apart because they had different outlooks on how their future together would look. Dushku — who was at a crossroads in her life — had aspirations of going back to school and rebuilding her life in Boston, while Fox was content to stay in Los Angeles. Their differences in living arrangements ultimately caused their inevitable split in 2014. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Dushku confirmed this notion, stating, "Rick's an LA guy, and I'm a Boston girl" (via E! News). She later expressed just how homesick she was since moving to LA for her acting career. "I'd rather be a little physically cold here than emotionally cold in LA," she explained. "I missed my town and I missed my family."

After moving back to Massachusetts, Eliza Dushku went on to pursue a college education, which was something she had never done due to her acting career. Given her mother's career as a professor at Suffolk University, Dushku attended the same university in hopes of attaining a degree in sociology. 

This was surely an important time for Dushku, but her foray into college made her realize just how expensive it is. In a 2016 interview with Wicked Local, she spoke about the horrifying reality of attending universities with the understanding that college debt is likely to happen. "I just moved back to Boston, and after 15 years of saying I was going to move back to go to school, I am finally a student again," she explained. "Right in front of me is the problem of student debt."  Though Dushku was likely not to face these issues entirely, it was an issue she empathized with. 

As with most college students, she slowly saw some of her classmates picked off one by one due to the excessive amounts of money needed to continue their higher education. "Unfortunately, we've gotten to a place where I've had classmates that have had to drop out after one or two semesters because when they go to college, they wind up signing a deal with the devil, facing a lifetime of debt that they will likely never get out from under," she said. 

Whether she was producing a documentary alongside her brother or regularly voicing She-Hulk in the animated series "Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.,"  Eliza Dushku remained a strong, active figure in Hollywood in the more recent years of his career. This, however, came to a head in 2017 when she joined the cast of the CBS drama "Bull." What was supposed to be a full-time gig turned into a three-episode character arc. As The New York Times reported, this was due to a problematic working environment where the lead actor, Michael Weatherly, made Dushku uncomfortable with a plethora of rape jokes and inappropriate comments about her appearance.

According to her 2018 op-ed in The Boston Globe, Dushku confronted Weatherly about his behavior, who then went to the producers of the show and had Dushku written off due to her "humor deficit." Dushku quietly fought back, which resulted in a confidential $9.5 million settlement, alongside other attractive promises such as setting up a meeting with legendary director Steven Spielberg. Despite their nondisclosure agreement, an investigation into the company's history of misconduct took place in 2018, causing this information to leak to the public. "I do not want to hear that I have a 'humor deficit' or can't take a joke," she told The Boston Globe. "I did not overreact. I took a job and, because I did not want to be harassed, I was fired."

When the news of Eliza Dushku's experience on "Bull" broke in 2018, it was clear that this would become the main talking point for her for months to come. While she surely wanted the public to learn of her co-star's wrongdoings, the massive amount of media coverage didn't help Dushku move forward. In her 2021 interview with Harper's Bazaar, Dushku detailed how publications regarded her experience as allegations. "There was nothing alleged about it," she said. "It was all caught on tape."

Whether it was Michael Weatherly and "Bull" producer Glenn Gordon Caron minimizing her experience or onlookers' suspicion of the incident altogether, Dushku found herself in a vulnerable state amongst the public. "I was releasing a movie I had spent 15 years trying to make that my brother and I produced, and it was really an important thing in my career and my art. ... The night of the premiere, I was eight months pregnant and trying to do the press line, and reporters were still trying to get me to talk about it. And that was all a period where I felt like I had no option, really, other than to just stay silent. Because I had to make a choice. If they wouldn't interview me without me agreeing to talk about the leak, then I couldn't promote my work and do my job either."

A life of built-up trauma slowly broke down the walls of Eliza Dushku's rough exterior. She eventually learned this the hard way after unveiling her own harassment story in the entertainment industry in 2018. While Dushku was able to relate to other victims of such malpractice at the time, her acknowledgement of the incident unlocked other unforeseeable side effects that inevitably caused her to confront this traumatic experience. In a 2024 interview with Boston Magazine, she noted that instead of feeling liberated after sharing her story, she felt the complete opposite. "I found myself feeling so wholly unwell," she recalled. "So painfully vulnerable, raw, exposed — terrified and suffering from what was diagnosed as PTSD."

This version of herself became her reality, which ultimately altered her way of life. Instead of succumbing to this, however, Dushku sought treatment, which opened the door to psychedelic-assisted therapy, which she eventually became an advocate for. The process itself wasn't easy, and the publication described her first psychedelic experience filled with mushrooms and MDMA as a "terrifying hellscape." Eventually, Dushku was able to find inner peace through these treatments, allowing her to fully embark on her own healing journey to overcome her prior trauma. "I finally surrendered and began to feel a release and a sense of peace, and security, and calm whooshing through me," she explained. 

With two children, a loving husband, and a thriving career as a certified therapist, Eliza Dushku appears to lead a happy life despite the numerous tragedies she has faced. Her apparent disdain for the entertainment industry left a lasting impression, and 2017 was the last time she acted on-screen. This raised the question: What happened to Dushku over the years? 

According to her interview with Time in 2019, the answer proved to be quite simple. After facing an onslaught of abuse as an actor — which aligned with years of silence, mental trauma, and more — Dushku simply decided to shift her focus from her career in entertainment to the more mundane aspects of life in Massachusetts, such as building a family and maintaining her mental health. Dushku's distance from the limelight, however, doesn't mean she's done with acting altogether. Instead, she suggested that she just needed time to heal. "I need the distance to recalibrate and start a family," she noted. "But I don't want people to think coming forward means ending your career. I could be acting. I could be in LA. I just need to be here right now."