For someone who spent just one year enrolled in actual high school, Penn Badgley has managed to make a career of playing angst-ridden students. Which is why he initially turned down the part of 17-year-old Dan Humphrey on TV’s campy Gossip Girl. “All I knew was that I’d already done three WB shows,” Badgley says, “and that it was called Gossip Girl.”

Smartly, he reconsidered. Gossip Girl has delivered for Badgley on all fronts. It endowed him with enough teen cred to do a Midwest college tour this past October in support of Obama, a cause he’d have bled for. Then it hooked him up with a girl—co-star Blake Lively, who has probably been photographed at Starbucks fifteen times since you started reading this. (Of their tabloid-chronicled relationship, he’ll say only that “95 percent of what you read is bullshit.”)

Finally, the show has given the 22-year-old actor a shot at a legit career. Penn Badgley (named after the Penn tennis balls his dad was nervously squeezing during his mom’s first sonogram) has been acting professionally since he was 13, and he knows how fleeting television success can be. (See: Perry, Luke; Priestley, Jason.) Still, while he won’t exactly bite the hand that feeds him, he certainly nibbles on it: “I can do this role with my eyes closed and my arms behind my back. What I’m looking for now is something challenging.” Like? “I always joke with the show’s creators, ‘Anytime you want me to do drugs or contemplate suicide, I’ll do it.’

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Attention Upper East Siders: Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester is not engaged.

The New York Post had reported that she and beau Sebastian Stan announced on their “secret” Facebook pages that they’re getting hitched.

But Stan’s rep tells Usmagazine.com, “He is not engaged.”

Another source tells Us that the supposed Facebook pages are fake.

See what Gossip Girl stars looked like as kids.

A wedding may not be far off for the couple, who met on the set of their CW hit show.

In October, a source close to the actress told Us that Meester is “really in love” with Stan.

See sexy photos of Gossip Girl stars on the beach.

Said the source, “I think this is the first time she really sees a future with someone.”

Source

Jessica on Late Night with Conan O’Brien

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Gossip Girl star Kelly Rutherford, 40, and her entrepreneur husband, Daniel Giersch, are expecting their second child in June, her rep said in a statement Monday.

The couple are already parents to two-year-old son, Hermès. Read More

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Gossip Girl stars Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr have taken their on-screen romance off-screen!

According to W, the pair and Chace Crawford were stuck in the Dallas airport yesterday (pictured here). According to a spywitness, Jessica, 23, and Ed, 21, were spotted flirting AND kissing.

“Definitely on the lips,” the snitch reveals. “Not a French kiss, but a smooch definitely. They were being very flirty when people were not paying attention… Ed was carrying a big Brooks Brothers bag, so I think he had probably spent his delay-time in the airport shopping at the Brooks Brothers. Jessica and Ed waited until the very end to board their flight. And then Jessica tried to go get a pizza to take on the plane but they decided they didn’t have time.”

Gossip leads Blake Lively and Penn Badgley have been a couple for quite some time. Leighton Meester is dating Sebastian Stan, who also starred on GG. Who’s left to couple up–Chace and Taylor Momsen?

Source: JustJared

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» Blake Bags Vogue, Too

Hey PopWatchers. Hopefully, you’ve all gotten the chance to check out this week’s EW cover story on Gossip Girl written by yours truly (click here if you haven’t; and click here for EW’s guide to the best and worst of GG’s first season). I was on location with the cast and crew in Brooklyn Heights back in August and brought along a video camera to document my trip. The result is a mix between The Blair Witch Project and an annoying tourist filming his trip to Legoland, but with more Chanel and man purses (Murses!). Watch and enjoy!!

Spotted: Blair Waldorf (and an adorable little dog) in the penthouse suite of Midtown’s Night Hotel, pawing through racks of gorgeous garments—Temperley, Etro, Dior—while being fussed over by her glam squad. Is the Queen B prepping for another romp with Chuck Bass? A reconciliation with Nate Archibald? Or is she gussying up to greet a mystery guest? I’ll never tell…

Pretty juicy little item, isn’t it? Except, like most gossip, it’s not quite accurate.

The location? Correct. The little dog and the fabulous dresses? Yes (his name is Jack) and yes. The glam squad? Hair, makeup, and stylist, all there. Only it wasn’t Blair Waldorf, the infamous alpha girl of the CW megahit Gossip Girl; it was Leighton Meester, the actress who plays her, there for her Gotham cover interview.

Gossip Girl, with its unapologetic portrayal of wealthy New York teens drinking, drugging, and bed-hopping, is a cultural juggernaut. One of the reasons the show is so popular is that it’s a marketer’s dream: The invitation to the cast’s wrap party came printed on a bottle of hot-pink Vitaminwater. An event for a new Yves Saint Laurent lipstick was held in honor of the show and its costume designer. And those “costumes,” which are essentially the hottest clothes the industry has to offer, have spawned dozens of Gossip Girl-inspired layouts in just about every teen magazine on the newsstand.

Another reason: the cast, most of whom were gorgeous unknowns going into the first season. Now entering the second, they’ve become actual stars and are the frequent focus of the gossip pages themselves. Repeated mentions in the tabloids have Meester and Blake Lively (who plays Blair’s BFF, bad-girl-gone-good Serena van der Woodsen) catfighting at every turn. Ed Westwick (who plays louche playboy Chuck Bass) is a frequent sight at the city’s trendiest bars, sometimes with costar (and roommate) Chace Crawford, who plays Nate Archibald, Blair’s ex and Serena’s biggest regret. Then there’s Penn Badgley, Lively’s real-life boyfriend, who also plays her love interest, Dan “Lonely Boy” Humphrey, onscreen. Dan’s sister, Jenny “Little J” Humphrey, is played by Taylor Momsen, who at 15 is the only actual teenager on the show.

A third reason: the location, which is right in our own backyard. In an episode last season, the following New York-centric items were referenced rapid-fire: Preston Bailey, the Waverly Inn, Tinsley Mortimer, 151, and Eliot Spitzer. New York is as central to the show as any of its cast, and 22-year-old Meester, a Florida native, wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. “I love my life because I live in the best city in the world, and I have wonderful family and friends, and I’m doing what I want to do,” she said as she sat with us (no kidding) on a recent Tuesday. “Right now I’m really happy. Having this as a home base makes me who I am.”

Do tell.

Read More

On-and-off-screen lovers Blake Lively and Penn Badgley make front page news, heating up the latest cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV Preview.

The mag talks about their hit show Gossip Girl, why parents hate it and teen wants to live it.

As reported earlier, Olympic gymnastics champion Nastia Liukin has a guest-starring role in this upcoming season of Gossip Girl. John Patrick Amedori and Willa Holland also have scored multi-episode arcs on the hit CW show.

Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV Preview is the complete guide to 92 of the upcoming TV season’s biggest shows, hitting newsstands tomorrow.

Source: JustJared

“MINDBLOWINGLY” IMPRESSIVE PREMIERE OF “GOSSIP GIRL” DELIVERS SERIES HIGHS IN KEY DEMOS

September 2, 2008 (Burbank, CA) - The second season debut of The CW’s hit GOSSIP GIRL delivered the series’ best ratings EVER in adults 18-34 (2.3/7), women 18-34 (3.2/10), adults 18-49 (1.7/5) and women 18-49 (2.3/6), according to preliminary live plus same day Nielsen ratings for Monday, Sept. 1, 2008. Despite premiering during the Labor Day holiday, GOSSIP GIRL also turned in its second most watched episode ever 3.4mil, slightly behind its series debut on 9/19/07.

Read More

Willa Holland of ‘The O.C.’ joining ‘Gossip Girl’

Holland, who played Marissa Cooper’s devilish little sis, Caitlin, on The O.C., is in negotiations to join The CW’s Gossip Girl (which debuted to strong numbers last night) for a three-episode arc, according to a GG source.

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