Your support helps us to tell the story
Our mission is to deliver unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds power to account and exposes the truth.
Whether $5 or $50, every contribution counts.
Support us to deliver journalism without an agenda.
Louise Thomas
Editor
Gossip Girl’s setting of New York was a huge focus for the show, so much so that the city was often cited as a “character” in its own right. But one star apparently had no idea that’s where it was filmed.
Kristen Bell is the actor who provided the voiceover narration to the show as the mysterious title character “Gossip Girl”, whose identity was controversially revealed in the series finale in 2012.
She is currently promoting her new Netflix series, Nobody Wants This, alongside co-star Adam Brody, who happens to be married to another Gossip Girl star, Leighton Meester.
In an interview with Bustle, Bell revealed that she had no idea where the show was filmed until recently: “The funny thing is, as Gossip Girl, I was only on a microphone in Los Angeles; I was never shooting with them,” she recalled.
“I didn’t even know where they shot. Where’d they shoot that show?” she asked Brody.
“Um, Montreal,” he replied jokingly.
“OK, first time hearing of it,” Bell responded, prompting Brody to clarify: “Well, New York.”
“Oh, New York. You were joking?” Bell said, as she realised that Brody had been messing with her. “New York because the city was a character.”
“You can see how involved she was,” Brody told the interviewer, laughing.
“I just got on that mic and I gave the sass,” she responded, before explaining how she had actually met Meester when she guest-starred on one of Bell’s earlier series, Veronica Mars.
Gossip Girl ran for six seasons between 2007 to 2012 and followed a group of privileged students living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, as their private and social lives are exposed by the unidentified blogger, “Gossip Girl”.
In Nobody Wants This, Bell stars as a sex blogger and serial dater who falls in love with a progressive rabbi (Brody). The couple must then navigate the doubts of their respective friends and family.
The show has received positive reviews from critics, including a four-star write-up in The Independent.
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 days
New subscribers only. £8.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled
Katie Rosseinsky said that “a few obvious tropes are present and correct” but “there is also plenty of room for less predictable comic moments that are sharply observed, and sometimes hilariously, devastatingly relatable”.
“The whole thing is an enjoyable mix of romcom escapism and sometimes acerbic realism. Joanne and Noah are a couple you want to root for. I get the feeling the show’s title won’t be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she added.
