During the first season of Gossip Girl, Taylor Momsen's Brooklynite character, little Jenny Humphrey, was too pure for this world. However, the tides quickly turned when Jenny got hung up on wanting to be the Queen Bee — and, after that, when she became a little obsessed with her smoky eyeshadow palette.
In real life, actress Momsen was ready to take on the music world with her (very loud) rock band, The Pretty Reckless. Now, in an interview with Vulture to celebrate the show's 10-year anniversary, the Gossip Girl writers admitted that Jenny's real-life persona influenced way more of the character than they could have planned for.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Jenny may have never picked up a guitar during the show's run (that was her dad Rufus' thing), but, beginning in the second season, her look started teetering towards a Courtney Love aesthetic. It was a world away from the Jenny who desperately yearned to copy the style of Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), the person whose throne Jenny coveted for the entirety of the show's freshman season.
So why didn't Jenny start looking more and more like Blair as Gossip Girl went on? Well, according to producer Joshua Safran, it was because the Gossip Girl writers were obligated to make Jenny look more like Momsen to accommodate the actress' life outside of the show.
"It was hard at a certain point to write for the old Jenny; we had to write for the new Taylor," said producer Joshua Safran in his interview with Vulture. (He was likely unaware that Taylor Swift had just trademarked the phrase "new Taylor.")
He added:
"Taylor wanted her hair a certain way because she was in the band and that was who she was, so we couldn’t dye Taylor’s hair to be Jenny every day, especially when she had events where she had to be Taylor for the weekend. So Jenny had to change."
Eventually, "new Taylor" ditched Gossip Girl to pursue music full-time, and Jenny ditched the Upper East Side after being publicly shunned by her former idol. In case you are curious, today, Momsen's hair is as platinum as ever.