List of Gossip Girl characters
The original series features ten regular characters: it girl of the UES Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively); school queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester); Serena's new love interest Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley); golden boy Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford); Dan's sister Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen); Nate's billionaire best friend Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick); Dan's best friend and ex-lover, the creative Vanessa Abrams (Jessica Szohr); Serena's mother, a socialite and philanthropist Lily van der Woodsen (Kelly Rutherford); Dan Humphrey's father, former rock star turned art gallery owner, Rufus Humphrey (Matthew Settle); and con artist who pretends to be Serena's cousin Ivy Dickens (Kaylee DeFer).
The standalone sequel series, meanwhile, features sixteen regular characters and follows the lives of a ring of teachers in addition to the students: famous influencer, it girl, and queen bee Julien Calloway (Jordan Alexander); Julien's morally-upstanding half-sister Zoya Lott (Whitney Peak); English teacher Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson); guilty rich Otto "Obie" Bergmann IV (Eli Brown); pansexual flirt Max Wolfe (Thomas Doherty); avid literature reader Audrey Hope (Emily Alyn Lind); movie enthusiast and bisexual skateboarder Akeno "Aki" Menzies (Evan Mock), Zoya's father and lawyer Nick Lott (Johnathan Fernandez); computer science teacher Jordan Glassberg (Adam Chanler-Berat); personal stylist and trendsetter Luna La (Zión Moreno); the intimidating and powerful billionaire Monet de Haan (Savannah Lee Smith); gay classics teacher Rafa Caparros (Jason Gotay); gay theatre impresario & Max's dad, Gideon Wolfe (Todd Almond); divorced athleisure wear designer and Audrey's mother, Kiki Hope (Laura Benanti); Zoya's new troublemaker friend, Shan Barnes (Grace Duah); and Kate's friend, Wendy (Megan Ferguson) Both series are narrated by the seemingly omniscient "Gossip Girl" (voiced by Kristen Bell); within the original series, Gossip Girl is a single character whose true identity is never fully revealed until the series finale, while in the sequel series, the Gossip Girl mantle is shared by different characters.
Jack loses hold of Bass Industries when Lily decides to become Chuck's new legal guardian, thereby transferring a significantly large power of the company to her.
Portrayed by Caroline Lagerfelt in seasons one, two, three, four and five, Celia Catherine "CeCe" Rhodes is Lily and Carol's mother and Scott, Chuck, Serena, Lola and Eric's grandmother.
She is portrayed as a very wealthy, highly conservative, uptight, selfish, intimidating, snobbish, and impassive socialite who looks down and scorns at all people who are of middle or lower classes.
Her cold and manipulative personality changes in the second season when she lets Dan into the White party by making him her escort, seeing that he still has feelings for Serena.
During Blair's eighteenth birthday, she and Cyrus have a conversation about Mei Li, the 'golden lion', a Vietnamese woman he met during the Vietnam war that leads him to divorce his first wife.
At the dinner, Blair is presented with a contract about the custody of the baby and Cyrus, being a lawyer, quickly finds all the faults and tight guidelines contained in it.
She reveals her more manipulative side on the 3rd season when she concocts a plan to have Trip win the Congressional seat left by the late Congressman Krueger.
He then begins to date Jonathan Whitney but their relationship falls apart due to Eric's once obsessive need to "teach Jenny a lesson".
In the 2021 sequel series, Eleanor made an appearance along with her husband, Cyrus, as they host a Hanukkah dinner attended by Gideon & Max Wolfe and Kiki & Audrey Hope.
After her relationship with Dan is once again thwarted, followed by blackmailing Vanessa and ruining Rufus and Lily's wedding, she gets tricked and sent away with a Russian prince, a plan to get rid of her set by Blair and with the assistance of Dorota, by exiling her to Europe.
At the end of season 3, after a long absence, Georgina returns to New York City from her enforced exile in Belarus disguised by wearing a blonde wig and a large coat, desperately seeking the help of various Upper-East Siders with her "problem".
Having left him for Chuck, Dan promises to write the book that he should previously published, which Georgina, who has her own score to settle with the Upper East Side, is more than happy to help him with.
Portrayed by Nicole Fiscella in seasons one, two and four, Isabel Coates is Blair's loyal sidekick, who remains her friend despite her losing rank as Queen Bee.
In the 2021 sequel series, Dorota made an appearance in Cyrus Rose’s annual Hanukkah dinner along with her husband, Vanya (Aaron Schwartz), and their kids, Ana and Leo.
She then takes matters into her own hands and has him freed but Carter refuses to resume their relationship, saying that he would have preferred it if Serena didn't save him so that he could make amends and leaves.
She pragmatically interrogates Constance Billard and St. Jude's students when an accident in the school swimming pool involving most of the Junior class reaches her ears and threatens expulsion if the perpetrator doesn't come forward.
In the later episodes, Blair seeks advice from her when she discovers that she is waitlisted for Yale and reassures her that all Constance students eventually get accepted as long as their transcripts are untarnished.
Blair eventually attempts to apply to Sarah Lawrence College but has no chance because of her hazing incident and that the dean only spoke with her as a favor from headmistress Queller.
She also regularly checks Gossip Girl's blog and once suffered symptoms of withdrawal when Rachel Carr has cellphones banned from Constance premises.
In Season 5, Nelly, still remaining a student at Yale, is invited to return to tryout to become a bridesmaid at Blair's wedding but doesn't show up because she hates her and is replaced by Charlie instead.
Blair tells him that she wants a relationship and at first they meet secretly so Louis' mother, Princess Sophie, doesn't discover her son is dating a commoner.
Portrayed by Katie Cassidy in season four, Juliet Sharp is an intriguing woman that Nate first met in a bar while he's on a date with one of the girls of Chuck's little black book.
Her glamorous, impenetrable façade and dismissive approach to love actually hides a sensitive, caring nature and as the season progresses, she declares to having genuine feelings for Nate.
Portrayed by Michael Boatman in season four, Russell Thorpe was a longtime friend of Bart Bass who started in the real estate market around the same time together.
After Bart stole most of his deals and wrecked many of his business plans, Thorpe essentially was run out of town and went to Chicago to build his own empire there.
Russell and his daughter Raina returned to the Upper East Side in The Kids Are Not Alright to shake things up for the reigning families and buy Bass Industries.
They have a short sexual relationship which ends when Chuck is told by Russell that Bart Bass was responsible for the death of Raina's mother, Avery.
Laura Breckenridge plays Rachel Carr, Dan's romantic love interest and his teacher in Season-2 Joanna Garcia portrays Bree Buckley in the first four episodes of season three.
