Main Characters
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Blair Waldorf
Blair Waldorf (full name: Blair Cornelia Waldorf ) is an Upper East Sider, and then some. She is the daughter of Harold Waldorf, Esq., and high-end fashion designer Eleanor Waldorf. (In Season 1, her father leaves her mother for a French male model, and runs off to Paris.) A hopeless romantic who idolizes Audrey Hepburn, Blair has a sensitive side that contrasts with her tendency to be bitchy...
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Serena van der Woodsen
As Gossip Girl opens, Serena, the sweet (sort of) blonde leading lady of the show (the opposite of her BFF, Blair Waldorf, the bitchy brunette leading lady), has just returned to Manhattan from self-imposed exile at a Connecticut boarding school. No one knows exactly why she left the city, but, as is always the case in these “awkward” situations, unsavory rumors—Drugs? Unwanted pregnancy?—...
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Chuck Bass
Chuck has a lot of money, but he doesn’t have a mother. She died giving birth to him, which is the sort of poignant, tragic detail you would not associate with Chuck, the Upper East Side’s ultimate bad boy. Chuck’s best friend is Nate Archibald, whom he regularly betrays. Nate always forgives him. In Season 1, Chuck’s Dad, Bartholomew, is a supporting character. He gives Chuck a lot of...
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Dan Humphrey
Dan is the moral center of Gossip Girl—which means that when he makes a decision, it's the correct one. (Except for that time he slept with a teacher.) So how did he get to be the moral center? He's not a rich Upper East Sider, for one thing. He lives in BROOKLYN, albeit in an expensive-looking loft, which he shares with his rocker father, Rufus, and little sister, Jenny. Still, he has to take...
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Nate Archibald
Nate is so good-looking, words fail us. Check out the pictures instead. All the girls want him, and quite a few have had their chance. At the start of Gossip Girl’s first season, he and Blair Waldorf are an item—they have been meant for each other since kindergarten—but then it is revealed that he and Serena van der Woodsen, Blair’s best friend, have had a fling. Blair is, like, SO pissed. Many...
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Jenny Humphrey
Vulnerable and insecure, but spunky and motivated (to get what she wants!), Jenny Humphrey (aka “Little J”) is the youngest of the Gossip Girl characters. The daughter of musician Rufus Humphrey, younger sister of Dan Humphrey, and the BFF of Serena van der Woodsen’s younger brother, Eric, Jenny tries to fit in with the "It" crowd, even though she doesn’t really belong in their world, being...
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Vanessa Abrams
Vanessa is the childhood friend of Dan Humphrey, hence her connection to the world of Gossip Girl. She does not come to it naturally. An aspiring filmmaker, the dark-haired Vanessa moves to Vermont to live with her hippie parents, but later returns to Brooklyn, bringing her parents' hippie-style fashions back with her. In a show dripping with high style, Vanessa's tie-dyed, Indian print...
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Lily van der Woodsen
Lily has been married more often than Henry VIII, and some of her husbands are dead, though none by decapitation. One, Bartholomew Bass, father of Chuck, was a billionaire who left her set for life, with no worries about bills from Tiffany's and Bergdorf's. Lily, a former ballerina, is very concerned with social status—the main reason she is at first reluctant to admit to having been a groupie...
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Rufus Humphrey
Dan and Jenny's dad plays the guitar in a formerly hip, yet not totally clueless, way. He was a rock star back in the day. One of his groupies was Lily van der Woodsen, Serena's mom, though she had a different last name then. (With all of her husbands, who can remember which one?) Rufus now has an art gallery, a loft in Brooklyn, and two private school tuitions. He's a single dad, since his...
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Gossip Girl
"Gossip Girl" is the narrator of the show. She is an unseen character whose gossip commentary blog is widely visited by the youths of the Upper East Side social scene, often stirring the lives of the main characters. Her (or his) identity remains a secret but still manages to lure readers with catty wordplay and scandalous news provided via tips through the members of the Upper East Side social...
