When Gossip Girl was on air between 2007 and 2012 there was a lot of speculation about the show’s main stars Blake Lively and Leighton Meester being locked in a feud
Popular teen TV series Gossip Girl was full of drama, from racy affairs to devious schemes and friendship fallouts.
But in the years that the show about rich Upper East Side teens aired, there were as many stories about backstage drama as there were about what Serena, Blair and co were getting up to on screen. At the centre of it all was a persistent rumour about main stars Blake Lively and Leighton Meester not getting along.
With Leighton turning 39 today, we have a look back at what really went on behind the scenes on the series, which also starred late actress Michelle Trachtenberg.
The series started in 2007 and ran to 2012, with Blake as privileged society girl Serena Van Der Woodsen and Leighton as her closest friend Blair Waldorf. The pair had a tense relationship on screen – with the characters best friends one minute and enemies the next.
Then rumours started to emerge about them not being close off camera. A US publication reported that the pair would allegedly “avoid each other like the plague”, and there was a lot of gossip about tension on set.
There were even claims that other cast members felt as if they had to choose sides between Blake and Leighton. However, the pair were also snapped smiling and looking as if they were enjoying each other’s company on red carpets and at celeb events, casting doubt on all the speculation.
The stars played their cards close to their chests while the series was on air and didn’t say much on all the speculation. But after Gossip Girl wrapped, executive producer Joshua Safran shed some light on the subject.
Safran opened up to Vanity Fair that Blake and Leighton “were not friends”. But he made it clear that it was just that the actresses were different people.
He suggested there wasn’t any big issue or major drama about it, but that the actresses didn’t have a relationship like their on-screen alter egos in real life. “Blake and Leighton were not friends,” he was quoted as saying.
“They were friendly, but they were not friends like Serena and Blair. Yet the second they’d be on set together, it’s as if they were.”
He said that Blake was “very much in the moment” as a person but that Leighton was “very removed and very quiet”. Safran recalled that when Leighton had filmed her scenes, she would “wander” the stage.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
