Gossip Girl: Where are they now? – DigitalSpy.com

For the uninitiated (why are you here?), the CW teen-drama series based on the books by Cecily Von Zeigasar followed the adventures of a group of impossibly cool and affluent young New Yorkers, charting their rise from school and college to careers and marriage.

Naturally, the action played out against a backdrop of haute couture, last-minute fashion shows (“well, I suppose Serena will have to be a model!”), royal weddings, secret siblings, pretend deaths, piano-top dalliances (if you know, you know) and so much more. Oh Lord, so much more.

The drama was all narrated by the eponymous Gossip Girl, an all-seeing, all-knowing mystery figure who shared the ins and outs of the Upper East Side’s most private moments on their blog (cute), with readers encouraged to text in gossip that GG could send out as a ‘blast’ for the main cast members to read in open-mouthed horror on their slide-up mobiles.

The show ran for six seasons between 2007 and 2012 and in the absence of the actual Gossip Girl to fill you in on what, exactly, the cast of the show have been up to in the years since the programme, we’re here to fill you in.

Blake Lively

Played: Serena Van Der Woodsen, the frustratingly stylish golden girl adored by almost everyone.

Since graduating from the world of Gossip Girl, Lively has been relatively – ahem – lively, with starring roles in a series of films, including The Age of Adaline (2015), survival thriller The Shallows (2016), psychological thriller All I See Is You (2017) and the darkly amusing A Simple Favor (2018).

She has also held a stream of brand-ambassador roles and is constantly topping best-dressed lists. In 2014, she launched Preserve, the homemaker-inspired website, which combined magazine-esque content with ecommerce. She shut the site the following year, revealing it had been set live prematurely in order to tie in with a Vogue cover.

Blake married Ryan Reynolds in 2012 after meeting him on the set of their movie Green Lantern. The couple have two daughters together and announced their third pregnancy at the New York premiere of Reynolds’ latest movie, Detective Pikachu earlier this month.

Insta rating: 24.6 million followers. She’s a relatively irregular poster, though it’s always worth the wait. (Imagine that sounds less creepy.)

Leighton Meester

Played: Blair Waldorf, the charming yet ruthless Queen B of the Upper East Side (and solely responsible for a generation wearing headbands).

Leighton is a multi-talented lady: whilst she’s received constant praise for her acting (she was widely acknowledged as the ‘breakout’ star of Gossip Girl, though that praise has yet to be reflected in her career), she’s also musically gifted, too.

Whilst still on GG, she collaborated with Cobra Starship’s irritatingly catchy Good Girls Go Bad, and in 2014 she released her debut album, Heartstrings. Whilst her musical work has bubbled in the background, she’s had relatively steady acting work.

She starred in the panned That’s My Boy with Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, where she was nominated for both the Teen Choice Award for Choice Summer Movie Star: Female yet also the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple. Currently, she’s starring in new sitcom Single Parents where she plays, er, a single parent.

Whilst Blair married Prince Louis of Monaco (and then Chuck Bass, obvs), Leighton is one half of a teen-drama royalty duo: she married Adam Brody (aka Seth from The OC), who she met when filming The Oranges. They announced their engagement in 2013, married the following year and welcomed their first child together, daughter Arlo, in 2015.

In a 2019 interview with Australian Vogue, Meester referred to her husband as her ‘soulmate’ – all together now, aww…

Insta value: A highly respectable 5.2million, though her posts are disappointingly professional.

Penn Badgley

Played: Dan Humphrey, the bookish outsider who got swept into the upper echelons of Manhattan society.

Penn is another actor-slash-musician; he fronts Brooklyn-based band MOTHXR; the band formed in 2013 and their debut album, Centerfold, dropped three years later.

In his post Gossip Girl acting career, Badgley’s dark-eyed intensity has upped a notch. He has played a succession of mildly sinister characters and actually won two awards for his portrayal of creepy Sigurd Rossdale in dark revenge movie The Paper Store in 2016.

Most recently he starred in YOU, where he plays main character/primary stalker Joe Goldberg. Season two is coming soon.

Oh and PS: he’s ‘Lonely Boy’ no more (those who know, know). Rather, Penn married Domino Kirke, sister of Girls actress Jemima, in 2017. (Want a little more trivia? Domino is a doula and recently helped Amy Schumer give birth. Small world. Well, possibly.)

Insta value: 1.8million followers; he mainly uses the platform to help highlight social issues.

Chace Crawford

Played: Nate Archibald, the kinda-dopey heartthrob turned editor of The New York Spectator.

Chace has had a slow-but-steady career over the last few years with a smattering of small roles (for example, he played ‘Young actor’ in Rules Don’t Apply and had a one-off guest appearance in Glee as Quinn Fabray’s pleasingly-named boyfriend, Biff McIntosh).

He landed a starring role in TV series Blood & Oil but it was cancelled after just ten episodes. Ironically, Chace was actually nominated for a People’s Choice Award for his role in the ABC soap. Anyway! This year, you can catch him as Tex Watson in Manson Family flick Charlie Says, as well as in Amazon Prime superhero series The Boys.

Insta value: Also 1.8million – he’s only posted 91 times and seems to largely share #squad selfies with cast members or clips from his latest projects.

Taylor Momsen

Played: Jenny Humphrey, Dan’s little sister and a budding fashion designer.

Look, if you thought Jenny Humphrey – with her dramatically lined eyes and awful season three fringe – was a bit irritating, you were wrong, okay? It was all part of Little J’s real-life rockstar persona.

After all, Taylor actually left the show before the series ended, dropping out by the end of season four and making only a fleeting appearance in the last-ever episode. Since GG, she’s done little acting, focusing instead on music.

Taylor is the frontwoman of band The Pretty Reckless. Their debut single ‘Make Me Wanna Die’ ranked at #16 on the UK single charts when it was released in 2010. Their most recent album, Who You Selling For, was released in autumn 2016, and if Taylor’s Instagram is anything to go by, it seems like a fourth album could be coming soon.

Insta value: A thoroughly respectable 1.2 million.

Ed Westwick

Played: Coldly determined (yet secretly fragile, naturally) hotel heir Chuck Bass.

Ed has had a fairly regular career since leaving the show. Post-GG roles include 2013’s Romeo and Juliet (where he played a brooding Tybalt), crime-drama Bone In The Throat (where he played a brooding chef) and 2015’s Freaks of Nature, where he played a brooding vampire jock.

He also starred in BBC ’80s-set salesman comedy White Gold alongside James Buckley and Joe Thomas. Shortly after the series debuted, allegations of sexual assault and rape were made against Westwick by three women. He strenuously denied the claims, writing in an Instagram post that “I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman”.

His starring role in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Ordeal By Innocence was recast, but in July 2018, it was revealed that the allegations had been dropped owing to insufficient evidence. Whilst a second series of White Gold was put on hold during the investigation, it has since aired on Netflix – series two landed earlier this month (May 2019).

Insta value: 5.6million, with whom he shares a mix of selfies and promo shots.

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