In honor of Gossip Girl's 10th anniversary this year, Vanity Fair writer Josh Duboff rounded up cast members, former showrunners, executive producers, and more vital members of the teen drama for an epic, wildly interesting look back at the show that defined The CW. From how Blake Lively and Penn Badgley hid their high-profile on-set romance to the surprising way Leighton Meester secured her role as Queen Bee Blair Waldorf, read on to see the truly fascinating Gossip Girl facts that Duboff was able to uncover.
![Chace Crawford is still mobbed by teenage fans. "It's so weird how the same demographic has been frozen in time," he said. "14 to 20-year-olds still come up to me freaking out and it's because they binge [the show] on Netflix."
Gossip Girl was the most illegally streamed show in China for quite some time. The CW's then-President of Entertainment Dawn Ostroff revealed that during a meeting with Chinese executives nearly a decade ago, they told her that "the most illegally streamed show in China was not C.S.I. or Lost, but Gossip Girl."
The cast bonded over a Will Ferrell movie. Right before filming began, they went on a group outing to see Blades of Glory.
Crawford didn't think Leighton Meester would be a good Blair at first. "I just don't see her as Blair Waldorf. I can't see it," Crawford recalled himself thinking during an audition they did together. "[Then she turned around] slyly in her chair," wearing Blair's iconic headband, and everything clicked. "I just remember thinking, 'That girl can act. She's the perfect girl for this.'"
Meester dyed her blond hair brown to get the part. "She came in and she was really funny, and really smart and played vulnerable. But there was one problem: she was blonde," Schwartz said of her first audition. "And Blake was blonde, obviously; Serena had to be blonde. So, [Leighton] went to the sink and dyed her hair. She wanted it.'"](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/bg37Wo_Cr2OHA7xNulM0GmM-f7w/160x160/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-:sharpen-!1,0,true!-/2017/08/30/628/n/1922283/17661a0911e9b51d_TCDGOGI_EC482_H/i/Chace-Crawford-still-mobbed-teenage-fans.JPG "Chace Crawford is still mobbed by teenage fans. \"It's so weird how the same demographic has been frozen in time,\" he said. \"14 to 20-year-olds still come up to me freaking out and it's because they binge [the show] on Netflix.\"
Gossip Girl was the most illegally streamed show in China for quite some time. The CW's then-President of Entertainment Dawn Ostroff revealed that during a meeting with Chinese executives nearly a decade ago, they told her that \"the most illegally streamed show in China was not C.S.I. or Lost, but Gossip Girl.\"
The cast bonded over a Will Ferrell movie. Right before filming began, they went on a group outing to see Blades of Glory.
Crawford didn't think Leighton Meester would be a good Blair at first. \"I just don't see her as Blair Waldorf. I can't see it,\" Crawford recalled himself thinking during an audition they did together. \"[Then she turned around] slyly in her chair,\" wearing Blair's iconic headband, and everything clicked. \"I just remember thinking, 'That girl can act. She's the perfect girl for this.'\"
Meester dyed her blond hair brown to get the part. \"She came in and she was really funny, and really smart and played vulnerable. But there was one problem: she was blonde,\" Schwartz said of her first audition. \"And Blake was blonde, obviously; Serena had to be blonde. So, [Leighton] went to the sink and dyed her hair. She wanted it.'\"")
![Lively was terrified of the fame that came with the show. "I'm actually a very shy person and the idea of losing my anonymity was one that was scary to me," she said. "I remember saying when I read this script, 'Whoever does this will not be able to walk out of their house ever again and be the same as before they started this.' You could tell it was a cultural phenomenon. That was both exciting and thrilling, but also very scary."
Meester had no idea just how insanely popular Gossip Girl would become. "I think it was just the normal, typical pilot season audition for me," she said about how she approached the show. "I auditioned and then I tested once and then we did a screen test with everybody. And then, that was it . . . I dunno. I got it."
The showrunners were adamant that only Ed Westwick could play Chuck Bass. Since the British actor was in America on a work visa, executives at The CW were nervous that he wouldn't be able to stay in the country to film, but Savage and Schwartz refused to cast anyone else in the part.
Westwick and Crawford moved in together. When filming began, the pair rented a two-bedroom apartment in Chelsea together.
Westwick and Crawford were swarmed by fans before the show even aired. After the cast announcements were made, the actors attended an Arctic Monkeys show together and were bombarded by fans. "We had these girls coming up to us, and they were kind of freaking out about it: 'Oh, we love the books,'" Crawford recalled. "[Ed and I] kept looking at each other like, sh*t, man."](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/I8F2FPmjyZkCBlCPGnTfTfX1nEo/160x160/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-:sharpen-!1,0,true!-/2017/08/30/628/n/1922283/8baefd14189f8efd_TCDGOGI_EC414_H/i/Lively-terrified-fame-came-show.JPG "Lively was terrified of the fame that came with the show. \"I'm actually a very shy person and the idea of losing my anonymity was one that was scary to me,\" she said. \"I remember saying when I read this script, 'Whoever does this will not be able to walk out of their house ever again and be the same as before they started this.' You could tell it was a cultural phenomenon. That was both exciting and thrilling, but also very scary.\"
Meester had no idea just how insanely popular Gossip Girl would become. \"I think it was just the normal, typical pilot season audition for me,\" she said about how she approached the show. \"I auditioned and then I tested once and then we did a screen test with everybody. And then, that was it . . . I dunno. I got it.\"
The showrunners were adamant that only Ed Westwick could play Chuck Bass. Since the British actor was in America on a work visa, executives at The CW were nervous that he wouldn't be able to stay in the country to film, but Savage and Schwartz refused to cast anyone else in the part.
Westwick and Crawford moved in together. When filming began, the pair rented a two-bedroom apartment in Chelsea together.
Westwick and Crawford were swarmed by fans before the show even aired. After the cast announcements were made, the actors attended an Arctic Monkeys show together and were bombarded by fans. \"We had these girls coming up to us, and they were kind of freaking out about it: 'Oh, we love the books,'\" Crawford recalled. \"[Ed and I] kept looking at each other like, sh*t, man.\"")
![Executives wanted the cast to act like their characters in real life. After news that she and Badgley had dated went public and her personal life was splashed all over the tabloids, Lively quickly realized that some of the show's higher-ups were thrilled. "They wanted us all to date. They wanted us all to wear the same clothes that we're wearing on the show," she explained. "They wanted that, because then it fed their whole narrative. People could buy into this world."
Badgley parted with the show on bad terms. Badgley declined to be interviewed for the Vanity Fair profile, but Safran noted that the actor "didn't like being on Gossip Girl, but . . . he was Dan. He may not have liked it, but [his character] was the closest to who he was."
The cast was always singing behind the scenes. Kelly Rutherford, who played Serena's mom, Lily, said that, "You'd walk by the dressing rooms and everyone would be doing their music." Both Meester and Taylor Momsen, who starred as Jenny Humphrey, have continued their music careers.
By the end of Gossip Girl's run, certain actors were pretty unhappy. With movie opportunities floating in and music projects taking over their lives, Gossip Girl's cast started to outgrow the series. "Some of the actors were not entirely happy to be there after a certain point," Safran said. "And no matter what we did, they were never going be happy. . . . They were kids. They were young."
Billy Baldwin wasn't thrilled that Lively would be playing his brother's wife in a movie. Billy Baldwin, who played Serena's father, shared an anecdote about Lively's blossoming movie career. "She goes, 'Yeah, [Alec]'s gonna play my husband.' And I said, 'So in what universe is it just or right or fair that he plays your husband and I play your father?' And she started laughing and said, 'That makes you Alec's father-in-law.' And I was like, 'Say that again and I'm gonna stab you with a pen or something. Or, like, break your kneecap.'"](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/uEWjoJTEbNkw3LVU9oieOBVJY0Q/160x160/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-:sharpen-!1,0,true!-/2017/08/30/628/n/1922283/0bc8e6e5b9b9de6e_TCDGOGI_EC186_H/i/Executives-wanted-cast-act-like-characters-real-life.JPG "Executives wanted the cast to act like their characters in real life. After news that she and Badgley had dated went public and her personal life was splashed all over the tabloids, Lively quickly realized that some of the show's higher-ups were thrilled. \"They wanted us all to date. They wanted us all to wear the same clothes that we're wearing on the show,\" she explained. \"They wanted that, because then it fed their whole narrative. People could buy into this world.\"
Badgley parted with the show on bad terms. Badgley declined to be interviewed for the Vanity Fair profile, but Safran noted that the actor \"didn't like being on Gossip Girl, but . . . he was Dan. He may not have liked it, but [his character] was the closest to who he was.\"
The cast was always singing behind the scenes. Kelly Rutherford, who played Serena's mom, Lily, said that, \"You'd walk by the dressing rooms and everyone would be doing their music.\" Both Meester and Taylor Momsen, who starred as Jenny Humphrey, have continued their music careers.
By the end of Gossip Girl's run, certain actors were pretty unhappy. With movie opportunities floating in and music projects taking over their lives, Gossip Girl's cast started to outgrow the series. \"Some of the actors were not entirely happy to be there after a certain point,\" Safran said. \"And no matter what we did, they were never going be happy. . . . They were kids. They were young.\"
Billy Baldwin wasn't thrilled that Lively would be playing his brother's wife in a movie. Billy Baldwin, who played Serena's father, shared an anecdote about Lively's blossoming movie career. \"She goes, 'Yeah, [Alec]'s gonna play my husband.' And I said, 'So in what universe is it just or right or fair that he plays your husband and I play your father?' And she started laughing and said, 'That makes you Alec's father-in-law.' And I was like, 'Say that again and I'm gonna stab you with a pen or something. Or, like, break your kneecap.'\"")
![The show shifted production across the country for Lively. Gossip Girl moved from NYC to Los Angeles so Lively could film Oliver Stone's Savages in 2012.
Lively used to send Leonardo DiCaprio pictures of dolls?! Lively and DiCaprio dated for a few months in 2011, and their relationship sounds . . . unique. "We learned a lot from Blake. When I think about shooting the L.A. episodes, Blake was dating [DiCaprio] at the time, and she had this thing where she had a doll that she took photos of that she sent to Leo," Safran explained. "Blake was way ahead of the curve. It was pre-Instagram. She was documenting her life in photographs in a way that people were not yet doing."
Filming was actually really hectic. According to Lively, they "were creating three episodes at once sometimes, we were given our lines at the very last minute, we didn't know where our characters were going; there was no planning or arc. . . . It almost felt like a sketch show. We were basically sort of reading off of cue cards. There were people taking pictures the whole time and paparazzi jumping in front of the cameras — it felt like we were part of a cultural experiment."
A teenage hacker from Russia leaked a ton of scripts. During the show's fourth season, scripts started ending up online after a Russian hacker got into a writer's email account. "All season, our scripts were ending up online, and we couldn't figure out how," one of the producers said. "We hired a private investigator. We didn't understand what was happening, because everything was getting leaked, every detail. . . . A teenager, I think either [from] Russia or Bulgaria, had hacked one of the writer's e-mails, and was selling scripts on eBay. But they were underage, so they couldn't be prosecuted. It was a f*cking production nightmare. We would have to 'X' out every script. We would have to print on red paper. . . . It was like there was a 'Gossip Girl' in our system."
Dan wasn't always going to be Gossip Girl. Both Nate and Eric van der Woodsen were first considered by the writers earlier on in the series.
Ed Westwick probably didn't watch the finale. In an email asking Westwick about his favorite plotlines or memories from the show, he replied, "I still am not sure who GG was lol."](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/Gc4c1MVZMvLy2ksIMunSFz-Krpc/160x160/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-:sharpen-!1,0,true!-/2017/08/30/666/n/1922283/0ec9caa4bca193e2_TCDGOGI_EC033_H/i/show-shifted-production-across-country-Lively.JPG "The show shifted production across the country for Lively. Gossip Girl moved from NYC to Los Angeles so Lively could film Oliver Stone's Savages in 2012.
Lively used to send Leonardo DiCaprio pictures of dolls?! Lively and DiCaprio dated for a few months in 2011, and their relationship sounds . . . unique. \"We learned a lot from Blake. When I think about shooting the L.A. episodes, Blake was dating [DiCaprio] at the time, and she had this thing where she had a doll that she took photos of that she sent to Leo,\" Safran explained. \"Blake was way ahead of the curve. It was pre-Instagram. She was documenting her life in photographs in a way that people were not yet doing.\"
Filming was actually really hectic. According to Lively, they \"were creating three episodes at once sometimes, we were given our lines at the very last minute, we didn't know where our characters were going; there was no planning or arc. . . . It almost felt like a sketch show. We were basically sort of reading off of cue cards. There were people taking pictures the whole time and paparazzi jumping in front of the cameras — it felt like we were part of a cultural experiment.\"
A teenage hacker from Russia leaked a ton of scripts. During the show's fourth season, scripts started ending up online after a Russian hacker got into a writer's email account. \"All season, our scripts were ending up online, and we couldn't figure out how,\" one of the producers said. \"We hired a private investigator. We didn't understand what was happening, because everything was getting leaked, every detail. . . . A teenager, I think either [from] Russia or Bulgaria, had hacked one of the writer's e-mails, and was selling scripts on eBay. But they were underage, so they couldn't be prosecuted. It was a f*cking production nightmare. We would have to 'X' out every script. We would have to print on red paper. . . . It was like there was a 'Gossip Girl' in our system.\"
Dan wasn't always going to be Gossip Girl. Both Nate and Eric van der Woodsen were first considered by the writers earlier on in the series.
Ed Westwick probably didn't watch the finale. In an email asking Westwick about his favorite plotlines or memories from the show, he replied, \"I still am not sure who GG was lol.\"")
