Buffy the Vampire Slayer star, 56, stripped for Playboy… see her now

Charisma Carpenter betrayed no hint of her 56 years in a sizzling ʙικιɴι snap she posted to her Instagram page this week.

She rocketed to stardom in the 1990s on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Cordelia Chase, a high school classmate of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s тιтle character.

Carpenter reprised the role on the spin-off Angel from 1999 to 2004 – and four months after her last episode aired, she covered Playboy in the ɴuᴅᴇ.

Her chiseled physique appeared virtually unchanged 22 years later when she posed for social media in a scarlet two-piece that barely contained her ᴀssets.

Showing off her enviably taut midriff, she stylishly accessorized the swimsuit with a set of purple aviators and pulled her hair back with an orange bandanna.

The Las Vegas-born bombshell brought out her still agelessly luminous complexion with makeup as she snapped a sun-drenched selfie.

The Daily Mail has contacted Carpenter’s representative for comment. 

Charisma Carpenter betrayed no hint of her 56 years in a sizzling ʙικιɴι snap she posted to her Instagram page this week

(clockwise from top left) Alyson Hanigan, Carpenter, SArah Michelle Gellar and Nicholas Brendon are pictured on Joss Whedon’s hit 1990s show Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Carpenter uploaded the pH๏τo as part of a suite of images showing her birthday festivities in the days leading up to her turning 56 on July 23.

‘So grateful for the friends in my life who helped me celebrate all this week the joy of dancing til you’re dripping wet with sweat, live music, clubbing, travel, boating, paddle-boarding, World Cup watching, eating well and embracing tan lines,’ she gushed in the caption. ‘Thank you! You know who you are!’

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When she was in her early 40s, Carpenter offered fans a window into the diet and exercise routine she availed herself of to maintain her figure.

‘I have to work so bloody hard at it. Let me tell you, hitting 40 is not fun,’ she confessed in a 2013 interview with OK! magazine.

‘My weakness is potato chips and I love a good cocktail. My metabolism has changed so much and I just have to work really, really hard at it, so it’s not easy,’ she said.

‘It’s good, old-fashioned diet and exercise, which I sort of have to clean up right now because we’re going to be heading back to work pretty soon and I’ve gotta look good. I’ve got to feel good, I’m working with 20-year-olds. Are you kidding me?’

Carpenter exclaimed: ‘It’s so hard! They’re eating gummi bears and pretzels with peanut ʙuттer fillings and drinking whatever they want and I’m like: “You frustrate me! I want to have that metabolism again!”‘

However she reflected that ‘after I had my son, that’s the best I ever looked. And when I posed for Playboy that’s the best I ever felt in my life.’

Carpenter reprised the role on the spin-off Angel from 1999 to 2004

Four months after her last episode aired, she posed ɴuᴅᴇ on the cover of Playboy

She shared that she worked out ‘regularly’ with trainer Marc Monroe, who ‘mixes it up’ with a variety of methods including ‘boxing’ or an ‘outdoor workout.’

In 2021, Carpenter added her voice to the gathering chorus of allegations that ultimately torpedoed the politically correct public persona of Joss Whedon, creator of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

She claimed he called her ‘fat’ when she was four months pregnant during her run on Angel and asked if she was ‘going to keep’ the baby when she informed him that she was expecting while a season of the show was being sH๏τ.

‘He proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth,’ wrote Carpenter in a statement posted to what was then Twitter.

Nevertheless she decided to return to the Buffyverse in 2023 for the Audible Original series Slayers, with which Whedon was uninvolved.

She acknowledged feeling a ‘little bit of apprehension when I first was asked to join’ Slayers, in a New York Comic Con interview quoted by Us Weekly.

However her misgivings were ‘ᴀssuaged’ by the ‘enthusiasm’ she heard in the pitch from her Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Amber Benson, the creator of Slayers.