Watch Charisma Carpenter Online

Carpenter was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, where she attended Bishop Gorman High School. She is of Cherokee, Irish, Scottish, and Spanish ancestry on her mother's side and French and German on her father's side. When she was 15, the family moved to Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico, and then to Chula Vista (a suburb of San Diego) where she attended Chula Vista High and Bonita Vista High. After graduation, she was a San Diego Chargers cheerleader in 1991 before beginning her Hollywood career. She had also dabbled in sky-diving. She married her French fiancee Damien Hardy on October 5, 2002 and she gave birth to son Donavan Charles Hardy on March 24, 2003. Carpenter and Hardy separated late in 2007. Carpenter has a large scar on her belly from a childhood accident. While five years old, and playing around a swimming pool that was still under construction, she fell onto a piece of rebar. The scar was incorporated into Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode "Lovers Walk", when her character fell onto an exposed piece of rebar. Carpenter has four tattoos; a tribal sun on her lower back that represents life, a rosary on her left wrist as a reminder to stay centered, D2 on the inside of her right wrist to represent the names of her husband and son, and the infinity symbol on her left ring finger beneath her wedding ring.

Carpenter was discovered by a commercial agent while working as a waitress. This led to several roles on TV advertisements. She made guest appearances in Baywatch and Miss Match, and she has had a role in Malibu Shores. Her best known role was that of Cordelia on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. After seven years of playing Cordelia Chase (three years on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and four years on Angel), Carpenter returned for Angel's 100th episode in the fifth and final season, explaining that she thought Cordelia fans deserved closure after the controversy of her unexplained removal from the show. Carpenter became good friends with Holly Marie Combs during the filming of See Jane Date and this friendship led to her three episode guest stint on Charmed as a psychic demon called The Seer. Carpenter appeared on the cover and posed for a nude pictorial in the June 2004 issue of Playboy magazine. She made the decision to pose as a way to motivate herself to lose her pregnancy weight. The photos were taken ten months after she gave birth to her son. Carpenter has played three characters with the ability to tell the future. In Angel, her character, Cordelia, received visions from The Powers That Be. On Charmed, she played Kira, the Seer, who counted premonitions among her powers. In Voodoo Moon, she could tell the future through her drawings. In March 2005, casting for Revolution Studios's big-budget remake of John Carpenter's The Fog was underway. The role of lighthouse radio deejay Stevie Wayne (a character originated by scream queen Adrienne Barbeau) had suddenly become vacant after Stacy Ferguson (a.k.a. Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas) left the project. Carpenter was considered a possible replacement, but was deemed 'too old' for the part and studio brass felt she wasn't popular enough to help guarantee a box office draw. The role eventually went to Selma Blair. Being passed up for the part turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the film was nearly universally panned for its shallow plot and poor acting. As of January 2006, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 5%. Carpenter had a recurring role as Kendall Casablancas in the TV series Veronica Mars for the 2005-2006 season, appearing in 11 episodes. She also starred in Voodoo Moon by writer/director Kevin VanHook, as well as an assortment of made-for-television movies. One such recent movie was called Relative Chaos on ABC Family, co-starring with Nicholas Brendon, one of her co-stars from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Carpenter guest-starred in the season finale of ABC Family's television show Greek. According to TV Guide in September 2007, she was set to join the cast of The Apprentice: Celebrity Edition, but instead chose to do a guest appearance on the show Back to You as well as a recurring role on Big Shots. In 2008, it was announced that Paley Fest would be having a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion. Carpenter attended the event, which was held on March 20th, 2008, alongside Buffy creator Joss Whedon, producer Marti Noxon and other Buffy alum including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nicholas Brendon, James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Amber Benson, Seth Green, and Michelle Trachtenberg.