Gossip Girl News

Entertainment Weekly's cover story this week deals with Gossip Girl rumors - most of which are untrue, but all of which are fun reading about. Follow the link for the full story, but here's the short version of the rumors ...

RUMOR: OMG! Not enough people are watching Gossip Girl and it's gonna be dunzo after this season.
REALITY: A world without Gossip Girl is about as unlikely as Blair Waldorf wearing body glitter.

RUMOR: Now that she's social anthrax at the Constance Billard School for Girls, Jenny Humphrey is leaving Gossip Girl for her very own spin-off series.
REALITY: Little J isn't going anywhere — except maybe to the local craft store for some sewing supplies.

RUMOR: Blake Lively and Leighton Meester totally hate each other and the set is a big hot mess of backstabbing and hookups.
REALITY: While we've never seen the leading ladies braid each other's hair, the set is hardly rife with tension.

RUMOR: This year Gossip Girl will be a smorgasbord of raunchy sex, male prostitution, and lots of rich people doing very bad things.
REALITY: Um... actually, that's true.

Some brief Gossip Girl rumors (including what would have been a major one deunked) and news courtesy of TV Guide ...

Q: What does Season 2 have in store for Gossip Girl's Jenny and Chuck? I heard they might get together.
A: In the name of American Apparel, bite your tongue! Jenny Humphrey will be too busy toiling away at a dress form anyway, as Season 2 fleshes out her fashion-related ambitions, which may or may not include Blair's mom. The Basshole, on the other hand, will avenge the loss of the Victrola — that "classy" burlesque club in which he wanted his dad to invest — by turning his sights on an equally seedy Brooklyn venue, and with help from a very surprising ally.

If you thought "Summer, Kind of Wonderful" was great (and it was), wait 'til Monday, writes Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello. See below ...

Q: The Gossip Girl premiere rocked! That's all.
A: Oh yeah? Well, next week's episode is even better. As I've said, the scene in the study between Leighton Meester and Madchen Amick is worth the price of admission alone. As for the Gossip Girl Season 2 opener - the ratings seem to be catching up to the buzz. Gossip Girl scored its best female demos and nearly set a record for viewers. To celebrate, here's some exclusive Gossip Girl gossip: I hear someone's going to come dangerously close to dropping out of school.

BRING IT: Sounds like some sort of confrontation between Catherine (Madchen Amick) and Blair (Leighton Meester) is on tap this week on Gossip Girl!

Looks like Dan Humphrey may have some serious competition.

E! Online reports that some new Gossip Girl characters have officially been cast, including former OC star Willa Holland, and even more significantly, a new love interest for one Miss Serena Van der Woodsen (Blake Lively).

According to insiders, John Patrick Amedori has been cast as Aaron Rose, who was a major character in the Gossip Girl book series.

John Patrick Amedori will play the character of Aaron Rose.

He's an artist who will serve as a love interest for Serena in Season 2, and he has a philanthropic side which gets "S" all aflutter.

Looks like storm clouds on the horizon for poor Dan.

Rufus had better start shopping around for a cute designer shock collar to place on unpredictable Jenny Humphrey, 'cause it looks like Little J is going to be dabbling even deeper into the dark side this season.

According to several inside sources, a deal closed a few hours ago for Willa Holland, best known as Kaitlin Cooper on The OC, to come on board the cast of Gossip Girl in Season 2 for three episodes.

She'll play Agnes, a 16-year-old model who meets Jenny while working for Blair Waldorf's badass fashion designer mother, Eleanor Waldorf, and is supposedly anything but a good influence. Thoughts?

After The CW's deadest of dead summers, the second season of Gossip Girl posted its highest ratings ever in all key demographics.

Aided by solid reviews, Gossip Girl (3.4 million viewers, 1.7 preliminary adults 18-49 rating, a 5 share and a 2.3 adults 18-34 rating) returned up 6 percent from its premiere last year and up 10 percent among the key 18-34 demographic.

With the second season premiere, "Summer, Kind of Wonderful," Gossip Girl lived up to all the hype and served as a strong lead-in for One Tree Hill (3.1 million, 1.6/4, 2.0), which also was up about the same amount.

The numbers show the network hasn't been stymied by a rerun-stuffed summer and set the stage for the big premiere of 90210.

Gossip Girl is back and one of our favorite pieces of media coverage of the show, the New York Magazine "realism scale," has returned as well.

This week's episode, "Summer, Kind of Wonderful," measured +10 overall! Here are some highlights from this unique Gossip Girl breakdown ...

• Gossip Girl's description of the Hamptons: "Think Park Avenue but with tennis whites and Bain de Soleil." Plus 1.
  

• Jay McInerney firing someone for not getting work done because they were sleeping around. Please. Dude invented that. Minus 1.
  

• When making out with Nate Archibald in the car at the beginning, Catherine makes nearly the exact same sex faces as Serena did when she and Nate were having sex on the bar at the Campbell Apartment. Plus 4.
  

• Re: Chuck Bass and the Portuguese triplets: Last time we checked, ladies can't take their tops off at any beach in New York. Minus 1.

• Of course Serena would wear silk while sitting in the sand. Plus 1.

• Does Dan not have one single male friend? And does he really call Rufus for advice on girls? It's kind of totally losery. Minus 1.

• Jenny, on dinner choices: "It's too hot for Indian, how about Popsicles?" Plus 3, because that is the most anorexic statement ever.
  

• At the White Party, Jenny gives her boss the bitch look. You never give your boss that look. Minus 1.
  

• Ordinarily we would say that no one would actually utter Blair Waldorf quotes such as "Damn that motherchucker!" and "All I could see was that Chuck Basstard," except that she probably thought of them in France and was waiting to say them all summer, which is so teenager. Plus 1.

Gossip Girl certainly has many fans in their teens and 20s. The Hills star Lauren Conrad counts herself among them - so much so that she says she would love to guest star on the show in its upcoming second season!

“I love Gossip Girl,” Conrad confessed in a recent interview. “I absolutely love it. It’s so gossipy and superficial. It’s amazing.”

Then again, LC says she’d rather watch than be on it.

“I probably wouldn’t want to see myself on there because it would ruin it for me. I like watching other people get gossiped about," she says.

"It makes me feel better.”

A big fan of Gossip Girl, Lauren Conrad sure is familiar with the sexy, scandalous territory. The SoCal cutie is no stranger to gossip herself.

MTV has chronicled her high school life since Laguna Beach. Now she’s ready for Season Four of The Hills, which returns Monday, August 18.

We doubt it'll ever happen - but would you like to see LC on Gossip Girl?

The names of the first seven Gossip Girl episodes of Season 2 have been unveiled, and the puns are getting worse and worse! See below, with air dates:

1. Summer Kind of Wonderful (September 1)
   
2. Never Been Marcused (September 8)
   
3. The Dark Night (September 15)
   
4. The Ex-Files (September 22)
   
5. The Serena Also Rises (September 29)
6. New Heaven Can Wait (TBA)
7. Chuck in Real Life (TBA)

We've received inquiries as to whether or not Michelle Trachtenberg (as the conniving Georgina Sparks) has been added to the Gossip Girl cast full time. Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly has the scoop on that:

"Nope, and I'm kind of okay with that," he writes. "I think Blair Waldorf probably put it best when she told off Georgina in the season finale with the classic quote: 'Haven't you heard? I'm the crazy bitch around here.'"

Don't look for Georgina's return anytime soon.

Also, EW writes that Gossip Girl is about to start production on a Season Two episode shot almost entirely at Yale University.

In actuality, of course, it will be filmed at a remote corner of Manhattan's Central Park dressed up to look like Yale University.

The whole gang (or at least Blair and Serena, Dan and Nate) will be there for their first round of college interviews. No word on Chuck