Gossip Girl’s biggest scandals – hookups, feud, major leak and transformation

From Blair and Serena’s explosive bust-ups to Chuck’s sleazy exploits and Little J’s scheming, Gossip Girl always brought the drama.

Airing from 2007 to 2012, the highs and lows of the privileged Upper East Siders had viewers gripped. But while viewers were glued to the drama on screen, it seems there was plenty happening behind the scenes too.

The set wasn’t all fun and games, and over the years there were whisperings of tension between some of the main players, rows and romances among cast members.

READ MORE: Where Gossip Girl stars are now – family feud, custody battle and sex assault denial

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We have a look at some of Gossip Girl’s biggest backstage dramas.

Feud rumours

Blake Lively and Leighton Meester were at the centre of the series as besties Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf, whose relationship was regularly tested but ultimately stayed strong. However, when the show was on there were rumours that the actresses weren’t exactly BFFs off screen.

There were whisperings about them avoiding each other on set, and in 2017 executive producer Joshua Safran told Vanity Fair they “were not friends”. But he suggested there wasn’t any major problem between them, they were just different people.

“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 Blake was “very much in the moment” but that Leighton was “very removed and very quiet”.

Cast hookups

Gossip Girl’s cast members were almost as interconnected as their characters when it came to dating.

Serena’s romance with Dan Humphrey was one of the show’s big themes, and off screen Blake did date Dan actor Penn Badgley. They were together for three years and Penn once suggested that it was his relationship with Blake that made him stay on track.

Explaining to Variety that he never had any substance abuse struggles, Penn said: “Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.”

Meanwhile Chuck Bass actor Ed Westwick got together with co-star Jessica Szohr, who played Vanessa, in 2008 and they dated on and off for years. Jessica previously shared on the Chicks in the Office podcast that although their romance eventually became known, when they got together they had “wanted to keep it super private”.

Leighton was romantically linked to Sebastian Stan, who played wealthy Carter Baizen in the series. They are thought to have been an item from 2008 to 2010, and People once quoted Sebastian as saying Leighton was “the most interesting, sophisticated, talented and an extremely funny person that I know”.

Script leak

Gossip Girl ran into trouble in its fourth series when it was discovered that its scripts were somehow ending up online – with some even listed for sale on eBay.

A producer told Vanity Fair that the show had to enlist the help of a private investigator to work out how the scripts were getting out.

“A teenager, I think either [from] Russia or Bulgaria, had hacked one of the writer’s e-mails, and was selling scripts on eBay,” they said. “But they were underage, so they couldn’t be prosecuted. It was a f****** 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.”

Jenny Humphrey’s transformation

Taylor Momsen was just 13 when she was cast as Dan’s little sister Jenny, a character younger than the others and without their edge. But over the series, Jenny – aka Little J – did a complete 180 and ended up scheming more than the rest of them put together.

Her changing image on the show, with Jenny increasingly donning a more goth look, was echoed in her real life, where the blonde was fronting rock band the Pretty Reckless.

“I certainly did not see that coming… I don’t think anybody did,” casting director David Rapaport told Buzzfeed of the character’s transformation. “Taylor actually read on tape and we cast her off tape, so we never had her here in person. We were looking for a girl who was on the brink of becoming a woman – I don’t think we saw that goth side yet, she was still really young; she was maybe, like, 13 when we cast her. Again, I don’t think anyone had met her in person and everything was fine as far as I knew and then it kind of took a turn.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk