Gossip Girl became a cultural icon for teens upon its release. It showed the glitzy, glamorous lives of teens living on the Upper East Side of New York, while they were stalked by a life-ruining entity called Gossip Girl.
Something many don’t know is that the show’s inspiration comes directly from a book series. While the characters, some of their traits and few storylines keep the two versions parallel, a lot of things are different between the two. Here are 10 of these differences.
10 Brooklyn vs. The Upper West Side
A major part of Dan Humphrey’s character is that he lives in Brooklyn, while pretty much everyone else in the show is a rich kid on the Upper East Side. Dan is constantly going on about how poor he is, but he still lives in a quirky loft with his rockstar father in Brooklyn so … shut up, Dan.
Anyway, in the book, he and his (poet) father live in the Upper West Side. Apparently, the change was made to keep the class division very clear, which it may not have been with the original setting.
9 The Identity Of Gossip Girl
In both the book and the show, the identity of Gossip Girl is a mystery throughout. Their existence is very similar, with blasts outing the secrets of various characters and stalking tracking their every move for seemingly unknown reasons.
In the book, however, the identity of the secretive stalker is never revealed. The show, as we all know, seemingly plucks Dan out of thin air and makes him Gossip Girl, even though literally nothing about that makes sense at all.
8 What They Looked Like
This is a big one. A lot of the characters in the show had to look different simply because they cast characters who didn’t look the same as they were described in the book. Vanessa was apparently bald in the book but had long black hair in the show.
Jenny was persistently described as having very large breasts in the book, but this is (thankfully) removed from the show, where she is a 14-year-old child. Many of the other changes are relatively minor in comparison, but it still makes for an interesting comparison.
7 Chuck’s Characterization
In the show, Chuck Bass ended up as the most iconic character. His smooth swagger, enormous wealth and way with words meant he pretty much took on the role of the main character many times. In the book, he is much less relevant.
He doesn’t have the future of Bass Enterprises in his hands, he doesn’t make it into college and isn’t in a relationship with Blair or even friends with Nate. On top of all this, it is very strongly implied that he is bisexual in the books, but this is removed almost entirely from the show.
6 Serena’s Parents
In the show, Serena’s parents aren’t together. Lily is raising her daughter in luxury and ends up meeting a few suitors along the way.
The most important one is probably Rufus Humphrey, Dan’s father. They apparently have a child together who is almost never mentioned and makes Serena and Dan siblings (who then get married), but in the books, they don’t know each other. Similarly, she and Bart Bass never get married.
5 Serena’s Lifestyle
The show focuses on Serena’s party-heavy lifestyle and is seriously over the top, considering she is a school child. It is revealed that she goes to boarding school after sleeping with Blair’s boyfriend and parties the whole time she is there, eventually leaving after Eric’s suicide attempt.
In the book, she is kicked out simply for skipping class too many times. She also goes to boarding school in shame and ends up seeing out her time in a guilt-ridden, quiet fashion.
4 The Overdose
One of the most dramatic moments in all of Gossip Girl comes when Serena reveals to Blair: “I killed someone”. It’s a massive twist and was probably goosebump-inducing to pretty much everyone who watched it unfold.
Owing to Gossip Girl being a teen-oriented show, this couldn’t be some sort of savage murder, so the impact of the reveal was somewhat reduced when it turned out to be a cocaine overdose Serena wasn’t actually directly responsible for at all. But it was still- quite dramatic. In the book, this didn’t happen at all.
3 Eric Van Der Woodsen
The whole character of Eric is completely different in the books. In the book, he is older than Serena, a student at Brown University and straight. In fact, he dates Blair at one point and actually isn’t a part of the storyline very often.
For the first few seasons, Eric is a pretty important part of the Gossip Girl show. He is gay, which is the key aspect of his character and he is younger than Serena. He never dates Blair, but the show does kick off with his suicide attempt.
2 Ivy Dickens
One of the stranger aspects of the Gossip Girl show came towards the end of its existence. They were obviously running rather low on storyline ideas and, as such, had to invent some pretty creative tales.
The introduction of Ivy Dickens actually worked quite well, creating a fake version of Serena’s cousin who was played by an actress called Ivy Dickens in order to access a trust fund. This is one of the few storylines that didn’t exist in the books that we actually wish did.
1 Dan’s Poeticism
In the show, it is widely known that Dan is an aspiring writer. In fact, this pretty much becomes the one backbone for his reveal as Gossip Girl: he is a writer so he can ‘write’ himself into their world. Yeah, it’s clever but it still makes no sense. In the book, he is actually more of a poet, rarely writing fiction.
This career path was obviously inspired by his father, who is also a poet in the books and doesn’t have any aspect of his rockstar lifestyle as shown in the show.
