Gossip Girl fans know that Rufus Humphrey (Matthew Settle) tries to be the best father he can to Dan (Penn Badgley) and Jenny (Taylor Momsen). So in a way, this is a Father’s Day tribute to Rufus and the actor who plays him.

Settle is now the father of a little baby girl, Ava, and is now practicing what he preaches as far as fatherhood in his real life.

I thought in the Valley Girls episode in season 2, how interesting it was when Rufus became mad at Lily for purposely getting Serena (Blake Lively) arrested. Rufus was appalled that a mother would do this on purpose, and it almost ruined his relationship with Lily.

I hope that in season 3, Rufus advises Lily on parenthood some, as she doesn’t always make the best decisions. Not that any parent is perfect, but Rufus seems to try harder than most. Happy Father’s Day to all of the Rufus Humphreys in the world!

Talk about a nice magazine cover! Gossip Girl’s Chace Crawford was named Summer’s Hottest Bachelor by People magazine in the June 29 issue.

As a big Gossip Girl fan, I’m thrilled that Chace won this honor, beating out quite a bit of competition, including Twilight’s Robert Pattison.

In People’ magazine’s video interview with Chace, he says he’s not one of those guys who “has” to have a significant other with him at all times. But he does seem him settling down in the future and having kids (he says he is from Texas, after all), by 30-ish. He’s still got plenty of time to do that though.

Chace also says he doesn’t know if he has any certain deal-breakers when it comes to women, but he says it helps if the girl likes sports and she should be able to sit through a football game at least.

You can read a portion of People magazine’s interview with Chace here. He tells People he talks to his parents every day and unlike his character Nate Archibald on Gossip Girl, thinks dating a married woman is a “definite no.”

In the interview, he talks about his first kiss, the perfect date (which involves a pool table, beer, a jukebox and good conversation) and his experience dating Carrie Underwood.

To see who else made the Hottest Bachelors’ list, check People photo gallery here.

Source: People

When The CW upfronts were held last month, the Gossip Girl cast talked to numerous news organizations during the big media event. Out of that, we’ve seen several interviews (and photos) of the cast. Here’s another good interview from E! Online,which includes Blake Lively (Serena), Leighton Meester (Blair), Jessica Szohr (Vanessa), Taylor Momsen (Jenny), Dan (Penn Badgley) and Chace Crawford (Nate).

Blake Lively talks about her tour of Asia. Notice she doesn’t talk about it, but Penn Badgley went on the same trip - together, of course. She also is working on getting her scuba diving certification, which Leighton Meester jokes around a little with her. Leighton says Michelle Trachtenberg (Georgina) will be around some in season 3 to make college miserable for Blair, and Serena will be looking into her father’s whereabouts.

Jessica Szohr thinks the beginning of season 3 will be focusing on college, while Taylor Momsen hopes Jenny shapes up high school now that she’s the Queen Bee.

Penn Badgley just shaved a beard. Personally, I’m glad I didn’t have to see it. Oh, and he says he and Blake are “too young” to think about marriage.

 Chace Crawford is asked about the Footloose movie for the upteenth time. The news that he was definitely getting the part was pretty fresh at that time, so I bet he was asked that question a hundred times. Basically, he had to work the movie into his Gossip Girl schedule.

WPIX-TV in New York interviewed the cast of Gossip Girl at the CW upfronts on Thursday. The reporter talked to Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass)about his new role in the movie Wuthering Heights, Chace Crawford’s (Nate Archibald) role in Footloose and how it feels to not be the new guys at the upfronts.

We also learned that the cast will start shooting season three in June, so their vacation time is almost over.

Blake Lively (Serena) enjoyed her vacation time (with Penn Badgley, though she didn’t say it) in Thailand, India and Maldives.

It seems Gossip Girl’s cast is really pumping up the show as the end of season 2 draws closer. Leighton Meester, Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf, was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Friday, April 24.

Ellen got right to the big topics with Leighton - her unusual childhood — among other things.

“My parents had been part of a very interesting lifestyle,” Leighton said. “Yes, (they were in prison.) Everything’s all good now. My dad works for an internet company. My mom’s a writer. They live the good life now.”

Ellen said Leighton Meester’s success shows that no matter what background you come from it is possible to succeed.

She went from average girl with family problems to playing a rich, spoiled girl Blair Waldorf (who we see from the clip thinks she’s too good for the subway!).

Ellen also asked Leighton about signing a deal with Universal Republic to release her debut album this fall.

She’s also on the cover of Cosmopolitan’s June 2009 issue.

Leighton donated a beautiful Chloe dress she wore the day before for the Chloe Boutique opening in Los Angeles to the Humane Society to raise funds for charity.

The dress she wore to the Ellen show also rocks.

In his free time away from filming Gossip Girl, Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) is spending a little time in his home country, England.

In this interview above, GMTV finds out what makes Chuck Bass tick and how he landed the Gossip Girl gig.

Honestly, Ed Westwick really looks good in this interview. I’m practically swooning. Maybe it’s his English accent that we don’t get to hear on Gossip Girl.

His interviewer reveals, almost embarrassed, that he too is addicted to Gossip Girl after watching a little. Yep, that’s what happens to all of us!

Newsweek just put up this great insightful and fun video interview with Gossip Girl’s Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays Georgina Sparks. The interview called "7 Things You Didn’t Know about Michelle Trachtenberg" first explains why she enjoys playing an "evil" character, noting you’ve done a good job as an actor or an actress if people walk up to you and tell you they hate you.

Here’s the seven thing you didnt know about Michelle:

• Michelle hates peanut butter. If you are dating her, plan to brush your teeth if you just ate a peanut butter sandwich.
• She’s not the camping type.
• The Gossip Girl cast is like a big family, there’s no drama on set.
• She can speak Russian pretty fluently, though pretty general stuff, not politics.
• She doesn’t know how to vacation. She would rather be working … and holding her Blackberry tightly.
• She’s a big House fan and was thrilled to guest star on it.
• The boys didn’t like her in high school. They were mean to her. On her new movie "17 Again," she says she was asked if she would want to relive high school. Absolutely no, she says. Wisdom comes with age she says.

Here’s a list of things I learned or found of interest in Rolling Stone’s Gossip Girl cover story.

You know, the magazine cover which features Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen) and Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf) sharing an ice cream cone.

1. Ed Westwick has chest hair! We see this in the full spread photo featuring the main cast members all in bed together under the sheets - Nate, Jenny, Serena, Dan, Vanessa, Blair and Chuck.

2. Leighton Meester and Blake Lively say the guys are all about their hair, eyebrows and pouting their lips, which irritates the girls a little.

3. Meester and Lively ARE FRIENDS.

“We’re very close. We’re friends. I can’t even remember a reason why people would say we are not,” Meester tells Rolling Stone.

Read more

Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester (who plays Blair Waldorf) received a birthday surprise when she appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday, April 2.

As she walked into the studio, Fallon had the entire audience participate as tons of confetti were released. He wore a special birthday hat during the show. Leighton seemed surprised and thanked him for the nice thought. She officially celebrates her 23rd birthday on Thursday, April 9.

Fallon discussed the sexy ice cream cone Rolling Stone cover which features Meester and Blake Lively (Gossip Girl’s Serena).

Turns out Meester is lactose intolerant, which makes the whole photo shoot a little funny. She also explained to Fallon which character was with who using the Rolling Stone picture where the whole cast is lying under the sheets together.

Leighton also talked about how as “the bitch” of the show, fans at first didn’t want to have anything to do with her. But now days, she said it’s a lot better. Leighton did attempt to help an older lady the other day off the set, and the woman refused her help saying “trashy show, trashy program.”

Leighton off camera said she is a nice person, growing up in a small retirement community in South Florida.

She also discusses an incident when she took her parents out to a fancy restaurant which had a super-fancy restroom. Leighton accidentally caught her scarf on fire in the restroom by having it too close to a candle!

There’s also a clip of the next episode, 2.21 “Seder Anything” where Blair tells her mother and Cyrus her plans to be the perfect socialite wife to Nate (Chace Crawford) in the future, hoping to become the next Jackie O. Cyrus tells her he has connections at NYU, which Blair in her own unique way says “Hell, no!”

Follow the jump for the second part of Fallon’s interview with Leighton:

Read more

Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen) stopped by the Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday, telling several funny stories.

Wearing a beautiful fuchsia-colored dress, Lively starts off talking about how excited she is about getting to take a one-week vacation from the show in about a week.

When asked where she plans to go, Lively says Disneyland! And then that brings up a few interesting stories.

As a child, Lively said she went to Disneyland about twice a week as a family tradition. That is until she and her brother were taken to “Disneyland jail” and not allowed to come for about a year.

She was 6 years old at the time and her brother was 12. He had her help him with a scheme to use hair spray to copy over a hand stamp to help someone get in for free. But the security cameras caught it, and they were interrogated about the incident.

Letterman cracked me up when he said Disneyland shouldn’t be surprised that kids would want to get in to a place built for kids.

Lively also talked about her apartment in New York City near the water where she lives with her dog, a tiny teacup maltipu (maltese-poodle) that weighs about 2 pounds. Letterman jokinglly compared it to the equivalent of “luncheon meat.”

Read more