Mara Wilson mourns Michelle Trachtenberg in heart-wrenching essay

Matilda star Mara Wilson has penned an emotional essay in tribute to fellow child actor Michelle Trachtenberg, who died last month at the age of 39.

The Gossip Girl actor was found in her New York City apartment on February 26. Her death was ruled “undetermined” by New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner on February 28.

Wilson, a long-time friend of Trachtenberg, detailed their experience attending middle school together in Burbank, California, in an essay for Vulture.

At the time, Wilson had just starred in the 1996 comedy film, Matilda, while Trachtenberg had debuted in Harriet the Spy that same year.

When Trachtenberg unexpectedly transferred to Wilson’s middle school, Wilson was sure she’d “be one the beloved girls” in her class.

“But that didn’t happen. Every time I even heard someone say ‘Michelle Trachtenberg,’ a kid would jump in to say that they’d heard she was mean, full of herself, a total bitch,” Wilson wrote in her essay published March 18.

“‘She’s not,’ I’d say, every time. ‘She’s really nice,’” Wilson continued. “Then, right before she graduated in 1999, she pulled me aside, and asked if she could talk to me. It was the first time we’d had a one-on-one conversation that wasn’t just a quick ‘hi’ in the hall since I’d started middle school.

“‘Are the kids here mean to you?’” Wilson remembered Trachtenberg asking her. “‘Sometimes,’ I said. ‘Because they are to me,’ she said, tearing up. ‘They call me Harriet the Slut, Harriet the Bitch, Harriet the Bitchy Spy … and so much worse. They never stop.’”

Later in her essay, the Miracle on 34th Street actor reflected on the moment she found out her childhood friend had died.

“I was packing for a work trip. I looked at my phone and felt my stomach drop. My hands were shaking and my knees went weak — I thought I might pass out,” Wilson remembered. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was too young. She’d worked too hard.

“I always thought I would get the chance to see her again, to tell her how much I’d always looked up to her,” she went on to say. “To tell her the times we spent together as children were some of the best of my life.”

Police responded to a 911 call just after 8 a.m. at Trachtenberg’s luxury home in One Columbus Place on Central Park South in February. She was found dead in her apartment by her mother.

The NYPD confirmed they found the on-screen star “unconscious and unresponsive,” and she was pronounced dead by emergency medical workers.

According to the Post, Trachtenberg had recently undergone a liver transplant.