For the Dynamite equivalent of the character, see Jessica Bradley.
| “ | He was the best. He was the fucking best assistant I ever fucking had. And I fired him to get him away from this fucking place. I had Cameron killed. I had him killed. (...) I could've done that some other way. He didn't have to die. It's-it's so easy to become a monster around here.
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Ashley Barrett is a major antagonist in the Amazon series The Boys and a minor antagonist in its spin-off series, Gen V. She was the De-jure CEO and former Director of Talent Relations for Vought International.
After Madelyn Stillwell's death, Ashley took over her position as the Senior Vice President of Hero Management, though she held no authority over The Seven like her predecessor did. After Stan Edgar's ousting from his position, Ashley went on to take over the role of CEO before later being unofficially demoted to a lower position. When Homelander ordered The Deep and Black Noir II to murder any Vought employee who had compromising information on him, she injected herself with Compound V to escape the purge.
The Boys Series[]
Background[]
Ashley claimed that when she was only seventeen years old, her mother died of cancer. As a young adult, Ashley used to go on protests wearing Guevara's t-shirts.
Season One[]
At first Ashley was Madelyn Stillwell's assistant. Being assigned to deal with The Seven's new recruit, Starlight, Ashley booked her an appearance at the Believe Expo. But between her and Vought’s mistreatment of Starlight and forcing her into their constant scripts and demands, the super-heroine had enough and revealed the truth of her frustrations on live TV, resulting in Ashley getting fired.
Season Two[]
After Homelander murdered Madelyn Stillwell, he recommended Ashley to fill her spot. Ashley is thrilled to have the opportunity to not only get her old job back, but with a promotion, yet Homelander quickly reminds her that she is there to tell him what's going on and that he is really in charge.
Ashley tries to help fill the empty spot in The Seven with Blindspot, but soon realizes that she has very little power as Homelander and Stan Edgar seem to make all of the important decisions.
Diabolical[]
She appears in Boyd in 3D. After some mishaps with Boyd Dune and Cherry Sinclair she told them they are fired because of their reckless behavior and also, they signed the contracts, much to Boyd's and Cherry's frustrations. Boyd tried to text her about wanting for Envision but she texted him to (bleep) off. It turns out it the events following Boyd’s procedure was actually an elaborate dream from by the Compound-V cream, which also caused his face to sag to an unnatural length before his head exploded into a fountain of blood.
She's mentioned in Nubian vs Nubian by Nubian Prince when he told Nubia Nubian she sent the media report and their numbers are through the roof.
Season Three[]
Ashley is now working in a senior position at Vought on public relations. She continues to obsess over "the numbers" and status of the Supes as she tries to help save and support their public image.
Ashley is having a sexual affair with Adam Bourke, the director of the latest Vought Studios blockbuster Dawn of the Seven. She also gets a new assistant, also named Ashley, who she seems to enjoy bossing around.
After Stan Edgar is asked to step down, Ashley is promoted to CEO of Vought - at Homelander's suggestion to the board. Ashley presents herself as an ally to Homelander, eager to please him at any moment. Starlight asks Ashley to please help her stand up to him, but Ashley tells Starlight she has no superpowers and can't help.
Ashley and The Deep go to the basement where Maeve is being held prisoner. Ashley argues with The Deep, telling him someone is coming with a search warrant to look for Maeve. Gas floods in through the vent in Maeve’s cell and Ashley mouths “I’m Sorry” as Maeve starts coughing and collapses to the ground.
Later on, while watching security footage, Ashley sees MM and The Boys helping Maeve up after the fight with Soldier Boy. She thought Maeve was dead but realizes she's alive. She and Anika look at each other and delete the security file, protecting Maeve’s secret and hiding her from Homelander, Ashley's silent act of rebellion against him.
Although Ashley had been technically demoted by Homelander, she still retained the title of CEO in official Vought press releases. One example was when she appeared in the investment summary video for Vought in January of 2023, which revealed that the board had given her an additional seven-month renewal on her contract.[1]
Gen V[]
God U.[]
After the suicide of Golden Boy, Ashley is seen doing a press communication stating that Golden Boy's death happened in a isolated space outside the campus of Godolkin University reassuring that is still considered the safest place in the entire U.S.
First Day[]
Later that night, Ashley makes a phone call to the board of God U to see how they would handle the cover story of Golden Boy's suicide, the next candidates to the top 10 students at the university picking Marie Moreau in the top despite being a freshmen student alongside Andre Anderson as the new number one of the ranking. After this, she asks Indira Shetty to take the speaker off so they could talk privately, then she asks to Indira if what happened to Golden Boy is somehow connected to The Woods.
A few days later, Ashley sends Tek Knight to the campus with the mission to find someone they could blame Luke's death on for the cover story, however, the plan fails due to Indira blackmailing Tek Knight to leave the campus saying he didn't find anything.
Guardians of Godolkin[]
Ashley is seen having a meeting at Godolkin with the board members to choose candidates for The Seven, frustrated because she missed a "gastronomic orgy" and because she can't find Indira, unaware she'd been killed shortly before. During the meeting, Cate Dunlap alongside Sam Riordan and several other innmates of the Woods start creating chaos at the campus. Desperate, Ashley gives the order to call the top 10 students asking them to kill Cate with the promise of a place in the Seven. Ashley then calls Marie Moreau and promises to give the girl a meeting with her sister if she helps her with the mission of killing Cate. While the chaos getting worse, she and the other board members hide inside of a helicopter and orders to call Homelander asking him to go to the campus inmediately.
Season Four[]
Shortly after Homelander appoints Sister Sage to The Seven, Ashley is surprised when she is demoted to a nominal figurehead position and considers resigning from Vought. Becoming even more uneasy with her standing with Vought after Homelander kills Anika, she decides to shred her resignation letter and goes to snoop around Homelander's apartment for anything she can use where she encounters A-Train stealing a sample of Compound V. When both realize that Homelander would kill them for going in without his permission or knowledge, both decide to form an uneasy partnership and pretend the other was never there.
The Insider[]
Ashley watches a report on Coleman's death and tries to convince A-Train to run away with her due to being fearful of Homelander finding out about their alliance. Later after the disastrous Annual V Christmas Special, Ashley is surprised when A-Train appears & says he's been compromised. Despite learning her life is potentially in danger and that both The Deep & Black Noir II know A-Train was the leak, Ashley reluctantly declines to leave Vought with him; however, she does remind A-Train to cut out his tracking chip to prevent the rest of The Seven from finding him. After A-Train leaves, Ashley looks at a picture of herself as a rebellious teen while mulling over her decision.
Season Four Finale (Assassination Run)[]
On the Vought News Network, Ashley watches as Homelander and Firecracker reveal to the world that Victoria Neumann is a Supe. After, Ashley tells Homelander that the people's responses on social media were mixed, and Homelander demands that Ashley makes a list of everyone who has damaging information about himself and The Seven. In the Seven's meeting room, Ashley follows Homelander, and he asks if she has seen Ryan. She hasn't, but she suggests that she can send a P.A for him. Homelander declines, and asks for the list, and Ashley gives it to him. She remarks that she had highlighted everyone who's contract needs to be paid out if they are "Let go." She leaves the room, but as Homelander discusses the plan to kill everyone on the list, The Deep reminds him that Ashley should also be killed because she had the most information on The Seven. Ashley eavesdrops the conversation, listening through the walls, and to her horror, Homelander supports The Deep's idea. Ashley runs to Homelander's apartment and is surprised by the absolute destroyed state it is in. Knowing a stash of Compound V is located in a bookshelf due to A-Train stealing a dosage earlier, she takes one along with a syringe and injects it into herself. Almost immediately, Ashley screams in pain and falls to the ground as her wig falls off. She grabs the sides of her head and continues to scream as the her scalp begins to ripple and oscillate seemingly signalling the beginning of a monstrous transformation.
Personality[]
Like most Vought employees, Ashley is a deceptive self-promoting liar: She works at Vought managing PR duties, but rarely displays any kind of real sympathy toward others. Especially with The Seven, she fails to even bother concealing her general disregard for others. She prioritizes promotional events of the famous over any moral and ethical issues and loathes any co-workers who do share her goals. Notable examples include her loudly belittling Starlight over her public appearance, and ranting about Starlight going off script, completely ignoring the fact that Starlight saved a person’s life. Another such example is when she became angry at Queen Maeve after she broke up with Elena.
She showed a little bit of compassion and understanding for others was after Maeve was shown to be deeply upset over Elena separating herself from her, due to now knowing the "truth" about her actions for Vought's interest and falling into a self-loathing binge of heterosexual sex to bury her depression, pain and being lectured by Ashley for being "Not Lesbian". Maeve disgusted by her behavior, tearfully asked her to try and be "a fucking human being for once;" Ashley pauses after realizing how upset she was and showed some remorse for her insensitivity before sincerely apologizing to Maeve about her separation with Elena and gave her space. As shown in the events of season 3, unlike Edgar or Madelyn, Ashley has shown to have begun becoming more outwardly disturbed with Homelander’s more psychotic behavior and to a degree, has begun becoming more sympathetic to the victims of his actions and even towards the other members of The Seven, such as The Deep, who he has begun terrorizing in order to control. Further evidence of Ashley's kindness and compassion is shown in her behavior towards Maeve, as seen where she apologized to her after knocking her out with knockout gas in her cell to hide her imprisonment from the authorities and her willingly helping Maeve escape Homelander and Vought's radar by deleting the evidence of Maeve's survival after Soldier Boy's self-detonation.
Ashley once told a woman from the Board of Directors to leave the room when she questioned Homelander, as she was worried that Homelander would hurt the woman. This displayed some care for others.
As shown during her angry rant against A-Train, Ashley possesses extreme levels of stress due to her job of having to cover up the never-ending number of crimes and even murders done by The Seven and the other Supes she manages, which has increased even more due to her two promotions as the Head of Hero Management and now as the new CEO of Vought. This is seen where she angerly told off A-Train about his callous actions and of how she was the one who had to cover them all up to protect him and was even further enraged and disgusted at his hypocrisy of wanting justice for his brother when he himself had committed numerous crimes and caused massive collateral damage without guilt or hesitation. This serves to showcase Ashley’s true feelings regarding her opinion on the Supes underneath the corporate mask of her job, showcasing that Ashley does possess a conscience and at least some sense of morality.
After becoming Vought's new CEO, her outward tone has become seemingly more ecstatic with joy due to her new position, she however has also become willing to do Homelander's bidding out of fear, likely due to knowing that she was only put into the position by his orders as an easy puppet for him to control the company. Despite this however, Ashley has also shown to have more self-confidence to assert herself more towards the other members of the Seven due to her now being technically above them in rank. This is seen where she was more than willing and capable of talking back at A-train. When A-Train ask her to change his image to reflect his black heritage, she sarcastically agrees while also awkwardly speaking almost in stereotypical jive slang towards him (including getting his catchphrase wrong), hinting that she maybe out of touch. When A-Train gets a heart transplant with Blue Hawk's heart, Ashley tells him to wear his regular suit and that his new movie shows his manufactured new origin story that he grew up as a gangster who was trained by a white coach (played by Will Ferrell) rather than his brother Nathan, erasing A-Train's new publicity.
As also shown in her rant to A-Train and in other instances, Ashley suffers from trichotillomania, a disorder characterized by the urge to pull out one's own hair at the scalp. Likely due to the immense stress of her job, it was later revealed that Ashley had already torn out nearly all of her hair to the point she was practically bald and had to use a wig to hide it.
During the events of Gen V, Ashley's personality has not changed at all and has mostly remained the same. But now she seems to lack of filter when talking to others, when attending a meeting with the board of God U, she complained to missed a "gastronomic orgy" for being there and is seen constantly asking "where [the fuck] is Indira Shetty". She also is more than capable of scheming and cover up everything that could tarnish their reputation, including keeping The Woods as a secret no matter what, to the point of finding someone to blame and use as a scapegoat.
She also displays sexual tendencies as a way to destress herself as seen when she has aggressive sex with Adam in the bathroom at the premiere event of the Dawn of the Seven movie, and when she insinuated to Cameron Coleman. It was later revealed that Ashley enjoys being a dominatrix, being how she releases her stress and frustrations as well as likely as giving her the feeling of having power over something and has complete control over, as she has little say or control over anything in her actual life and work. As shown, she had and maintained an extremely sexual masochistic relationship with Coleman as her submissive prior to him breaking it off with her in Beware the Jabberwock, My Son. Ashley was also implied to have been a long time dominatrix to Tek Knight and participates in depraved sexual scenes with him and other participants, as shown in “Dirty Business”.
As shown during the events of Season 4, upon being demoted even further after Sister Sage was brought in, Ashley has become increasingly more rebellious towards Homelander, as she has begun wondering if it was even worth it to continue working as Vought’s CEO when she is essentially nothing more than a figurehead and what little authority she did have was even further removed. As shown where she had even contemplated quitting and transferring to Disney, albeit Ashley would quickly silence any notion upon seeing Homelander kill Anika. However, Ashley herself retained her increasing feelings of rebellion against Homelander, she however tones it down due to her fear of being murdered by him. As shown where she does simple acts of petty revenge, such as leaving a floater of shit in his toilet in his private apartments, when she ran into A-Train stealing Homelander’s Compound V.
Later, upon teaming up with A-Train, Ashley has also shown to have slowly become more committed to working against Homelander. Becoming darker and more ruthless, and somewhat pettier, as a result. As shown where after Cameron had broken off their sexual relationship and insulted her on basically being nothing more than figurehead CEO of Vought, she covered her and A-Train’s tracks by framing Cameron. Both to cover for A-Train’s Compound V theft and information leaks to the Boys, but also out of spite for his insulting break up. Leading him to being “discovered” by Homelander and being gang beaten to death by his minions, with Ashley smirking as she heard him begging for his life.
When Ashley appeared at Tek Knight's sex dungeon, she did not react to seeing Laddio, clearly being aware of and complicit to Vernon's keeping of his former sidekick as a sex slave.
Later, while speaking to A-Train, Ashley finally revealed her true feelings about everything that happened and was going around in Vought. As shown, Ashley in truth feels immense guilt for her actions and she even cried over Cameron's death, with her later admitting that while wanting to get back at him, she never thought that they would kill him. She told him she didn't like how dangerous the company had become, and that she had fired her best assistant to get him away from the company and all the terrible things happening there, having done something similar when she told a woman to leave the room after questioning Homelander in a meeting with the Board, showing she does indeed care for the lives and well beings of others. Ashley would later tearfully admit how easy it was to become a monster during her employment in Vought and she is both disgusted and afraid of herself that she is becoming one.
Despite everything she had done, Ashley at the very least had done most of her terrible actions due to her desire to survive, being her primary motivation instead of just pure maliciousness and sycophantic desire to please Homelander, like a majority of Vought and the Seven. Later, upon The Deep suggesting to place Ashley's name at the top of the Vought employee purge list, Ashley would fall into panic and make one last desperate attempt to survive by going to Homelander's room and take a dosage of Compound V in an effort to try and save herself.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
Ashley's head deforming after she takes Compound V
After taking Compound V in a panic during Assassination Run, Ashley gained unspecified powers. The undulating movements on her scalp may indicate they relate to hair or the head.
- Superhuman Hearing: As she is now a Supe, Ashley's hearing will have been enhanced to superhuman levels, allowing her to hear frequencies ordinary humans cannot.[2]
Abilities[]
- Marketing: Ashley's primary niche is marketing and understanding public relationships between Supes and the rest of America, supplying a steady flow of income to Vought. Her role in Vought's Hero Management Department, coordination with the Digital Marketing Department & Public Relations Department, voice and sway in the Talent Relations Department, and high priority vigilance and discipline with the Crisis Management Team have on multiple occasions kept Vought from falling in stock value and overall valuation into bankruptcy by averting potentially damaging PR disasters. She has saved the public image of many Supes many times. Notably, A-Train is indebted to her for this due the Popclaw crisis.
Relationships[]
Family[]
Allies[]
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Enemies[]
Victims[]
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Trivia[]
- Ashley is partially based on Jessica Bradley, a character who was in the original Dynamite comics series.
- Ashley's trichotillomania in the show is likely a nod to Jessica Bradley in the comics.
Gallery[]
Promotional[]
References[]
- ↑ Investment Summary
- ↑ Bob in First Day: "Did you know Supes have a wider range of hearing than us? Like dogs."