BUFFY The Vampire Slayer icon Eliza Dushku has traded in her Hollywood roots for a complete career switch up after quitting acting.
The 43-year-old star – who shot to fame in the early 00s for her playing Faith in the cult classic – is fighting demons of a whole different kind after acquiring a masters degree in counseling and clinical mental health.
Eliza, who is also beloved for playing rebel cheerleader Missy in 1999 comedy Bring It On, is now certified as a psychedelic-assisted therapist.
She is also using money she earned as an actress to fund medical research and clinical trials in Massachusetts.
According to Boston Magazine, Eliza was inspired to forge this new career path after trying the treatment herself seven years ago after being diagnosed with PTSD.
The star told the magazine that her new job feels like her “real purpose” and said: “I had the means to shift directions and choose a course in my life that focused on healing myself so that I could help heal others.”
Eliza lives in Boston with her husband Peter Palandjian, a real estate developer, as well as her two sons, six-year-old Philip and three-year-old Bodan.
In November, she celebrated 16 years of sobriety, after admitting she turned to alcohol to deal with her own trauma.
Eliza has not been on screen since 2017, when she starred in TV movie The Saint.
Before that, she had a guest role in TV series Bull, but left the show and the industry after accusing her co-star, Michael Weatherly, of sexual harassment, and claiming she was fired when she brought it to the attention of others.
Eliza recalled how she was “aggressively” pursued by CBS in 2017 to become the co-lead in Bull, with a role that was designed with her specifically in mind and a contract that should have lasted at least six years.
“However, in my first week on my new job, I found myself the brunt of crude, sexualized, and lude verbal assault,” she alleged of actor Michael Weatherly, who played the lead Dr. Jason Bull on the drama.
“I suffered near constant sexual harassment from my co-star.”
Weatherly denied the allegation, but later said in a statement to the New York Times: “During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script.
“When Eliza told me that she wasn’t comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized.
“After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza.”
CBS later gave her a settlement of $9.5million dollars – the rough equivalent of what she would have earned for four seasons on the show.
