Which Gossip Girl Character Was Modeled After Jared Kushner?

The original iteration of "Gossip Girl" — not the disastrous Max reboot that ultimately got canceled after two seasons — focused on "the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite," so it stands to reason that they occasionally took inspiration from real-life figures. Serena van der Woodsen, played by Blake Lively, seems like she could be based on famous New York City socialites like Brooke Astor and Cornelia Guest, and she might be directly based on Hadley Nagel. On the male side, high society is teeming with spoiled, haughty boys and men like Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick). According to creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, another prominent male character, Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), was directly based on one Manhattan figure: Jared Kushner.

While speaking to Rolling Stone about their other beloved teen soap "The O.C.," Schwartz and Savage confirmed that Kushner, son of now-disgraced real estate mogul Charles Kushner, inspired Nate's trajectory. "It was for sure an inspiration," Savage said. "It's literally like, his dad went to jail for financial crimes, and he bought an Upper East Side newspaper to try to do positive stories about his family. We were like, 'Let's do that!'"

As Savage noted, Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, also appeared on "Gossip Girl," bringing everything full circle. "Jared and Ivanka were also on the show when they were just normal New York City socialites, and the crazy thing is the life that they had after that," she continued, referencing the fact that Ivanka's father, Donald Trump, would later become U.S. President.

It does make perfect sense that Nate Archibald is a re-imagining of Jared Kushner, whose father famously faced over a dozen criminal charges in 2005. As "Gossip Girl" begins, Nate is a normal teenager, insofar as he's a part of the presumably powerful Archibald family and is the recipient of an enormous amount of privilege. He and his parents disagree about where he should go to college and he's not sure if he wants to stay with his high-school sweetheart Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) long-term. This all falls apart, though, when his father Howard's (Sam Robards) issues with addiction are revealed. He's also committed various financial offenses like embezzlement and fraud.

The major difference between Nate and Kushner, besides that the former is fictional and the latter is all too real, is that the shadow cast over Nate in the aftermath of his father's improprieties basically stops mattering after a while. Nate simply exists within "Gossip Girl" past a certain point, dating Blair, Serena, Vanessa (Jessica Szohr), and various other beautiful women throughout the series. He does get involved with publishing, though, joining the ranks of The Spectator — a send-up of The New York Observer, the outlet formerly owned by Kushner.

Ultimately, his work at The Spectator under his boss-turned-lover Diana Payne (Elizabeth Hurley, permanently clad in animal-print bandage dresses) is what helps Nate Archibald rise above his family's reputation. By Season 5, he's running the entire paper, and after booting Diana from the company by using blackmail and general intrigue, he's fully in control of The Spectator by the time "Gossip Girl" hurtles toward its finale in Season 6.

In the series finale, "The Goodbye Gossip Girl," the show flashes forward to show us where some of its major characters ended up, including Nate. Not only is he swanning about on a private jet bearing The Spectator's logo — quite a feat for a newspaper whose financial troubles served as plot fodder multiple times — but he's asked if it's true that he might be running for mayor. (He doesn't answer, leaving the answer a mystery.) This is a particularly funny twist knowing that Jared Kushner ended up in the United States government under his father-in-law, Donald Trump, although clearly, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage didn't see that whole thing coming.

"Gossip Girl" is available to stream on Max now.