NewsBeat
Gossip Girl to return with ‘sequel’ about Blair Waldorf’s life as an adult in NYC 14 years after show’s end
GOSSIP Girl is making a comeback with a “sequel” novel centered around Blair Waldorf as an adult in New York City, over a decade after the show’s end.
The series, which was adapted from the book of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, aired on The CW for six seasons from 2007 to 2012.
According to Deadline, the author is revisiting the character’s story, portrayed by Leighton Meester on-screen, for a new standalone novel titled Blair.
Alloy Entertainment sold the novel to Karen Kosztolnyik, VP, Executive Editorial Director of Fiction at Grand Central Publishing, in a major book deal, per the outlet.
The book will be published in the U.S. and through Charlotte Mursell, Publisher of Orion Fiction at Orion, a division of Hachette UK, for a global English-language release.
Blair will reportedly take place 20 years after the original Gossip Girl series was released, with the former snobby overachiever in her 40s, returning to the Upper East Side to regain her dominance in the food chain.
The novel’s tentative release date is Summer 2027.
It’s unknown if the book could make its way to the small screen, but Alloy Entertainment – which is also behind other successful book-to-series favorites including The Vampire Diaries, You, and Pretty Little Liars – has obtained film and television rights if it drums up interest.
The original novel surely did, having sold over 6 million copies and spent more than 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list after its 2002 release.
There have been no reports on whether anyone else in Blair’s former inner circle will appear in the book, although her relationships with many of them translated differently in the TV series.
Serena van der Woodsen was the other main character in the book and in the show, as Blair’s BFF and sometimes nemesis, played by Blake Lively.
Penn Badgley, Chase Crawford, Ed Westwick, Kelly Rutherford, Matthew Settle, Taylor Momsen, and Jessica Szohr also portrayed prominent characters in the TV adaptation.
Gossip Girl got a reboot on HBO Max in 2021, featuring an all-new cast, with Kristen Bell returning as the narrator.
However, the show didn’t hit like the original and was cancelled after two seasons.
Many complained that the show’s teachers’ actions were “predatory,” and the overall allure was nowhere near that of the original namesake.
The revival also didn’t seem to thrust its cast into the same level of stardom as the former series did for stars such as Blake, Leighton, and Penn.
Blake has starred in a number of films since her Gossip Girl run ended, including the romance, It Ends with Us, which was the matchbox that sparked her ongoing legal war with her co-star and director, Justin Baldoni.
Meanwhile, Leighton has had fans swooning over her since joining the cast of the Netflix series Nobody Wants This, alongside fellow Gossip Girl alum Kristen Bell and her husband, Adam Brody.
Penn also cemented his place in another TV series, playing a vastly different character than the “Lonely Boy” from Brooklyn, Dan Humphrey.
The actor portrayed obsessive stalker and serial killer Joe Goldberg in the Netflix series, You, for five seasons from 2018 to 2025.
Gossip Girl is available to stream on multiple platforms, including HBO Max, Netflix, and Hulu.