Chace Crawford Had a Leighton Meester Love-at-First-Sight Moment During ‘Gossip Girl’ Auditions
It was love at first sight for Gossip Girl’s Nate Archibald and Blair Waldorf. Not really but it sort of was for Chace Crawford when he came face-to-face with Leighton Meester for the first time. The Boys actor immediately connected to his “perfect” during Gossip Girl auditions.
Crawford thought Meester was ‘perfect’ when they auditioned for ‘Gossip Girl’
Talking all things Gossip Girl on the XOXO with Jessica Szohr podcast, hosted by Jessica Szohr who played Vanessa on the CW series, Crawford recalled auditioning to play Nate and meeting Meester.
He read with a number of different actors before meeting Meester in a moment that’s stuck with him. “I got to this big conference room and there was this one girl sitting with her back turned,” Crawford told Szohr.
“I walked all around, I was like, ‘Hi, nice to meet you,’ and Leighton turned around,” the Texas native continued. “Before she even said [anything] I’m like, ‘She’s, like, so perfect.’ She had the headband on in the audition, she flipped around and I’m like, ‘I think I’m in love with you.’”
Although their characters dated, Crawford and Meester’s relationship didn’t go beyond friends. “We kind of had an instant friendship connection,” he said, calling her “easy to talk to.”
Ed Westwick also fell in love with Meester
Crawford’s not the only Gossip Girl star who fell for Meester. So did Ed Westwick, the now-37-year-old actor who played Chuck Bass. Westwick revealed that “part” of him fell for Meester during the show’s original run while at a Q&A session at Monopoly Events’ Comic Con in 2021.
“It’s hard not to fall in love with Leighton,” Westwick said (via Us Weekly). “Like, have a part of me fall in love with her, you know? She’s amazing.” His comments echoed those made in 2012 when he told E! News: “I’m madly in love with Leighton, so that’s what helps on my behalf, maybe so much that she doesn’t even have to be in love with me.”
During his own appearance on Szohr’s podcast, Westwick praised his onscreen love interest, calling Meester “an incredible talent” who made him “better.”
“I miss her dearly. We just had this great chemistry,” he recalled. “And we used to make each other laugh and I felt protective over her at times. […] I had an amazing time working with Leighton. And people really were taken with that relationship. It means so much to people, which is so cute and funny.”
Romances on the ‘Gossip Girl’ set
Sparks flew on the set of Gossip Girl between multiple cast members. Blake Lively, who played New York It girl Serena van der Woodsen, dated Penn Badgley—aka Dan Humphrey—from 2007 to 2010. So, while their characters were falling in love—and out of love and back in love—a romance blossomed between the actors.
Lively married Ryan Reynolds just a few months before the 2012 Gossip Girl series finale in which she and Badgley’s character—spoiler—married (via E! News). The You star married Domino Kirke in 2017.
Another Gossip Girl romance involved Meester and Sebastian Stan. They dated for two years from 2008 to 2010 after the now-Marvel star joined the cast as Carter Baizen in 2007. Szohr and Westwick were also romantically linked from 2008 to 2010.
Meester later wed The O.C. alum Adam Brody in 2014. Westwick married model-actor Amy Jackson in August 2024. (His Gossip Girl mom Kelly Rutherford went to the ceremony.) Stan is dating Peaky Blinders alum Annabelle Wallis. As for Szohr, she’s married to former NHL player Brad Richardson.
Gossip Girl is streaming on Netflix.
