Blake Lively Was Never The Same After Gossip Girl

Blake Lively is famous for many things: her fashion, her marriage to fellow actor Ryan Reynolds, and the hilarious posts they make about each other on social media. However, her career could've moved in a completely different direction if she hadn't starred in the show most audiences know her for.

While there were things only adults would notice in "Gossip Girl," teens fell in love with the series and skyrocketed it to a new kind of popularity. It was a key show as The CW cemented its place on network television, and the young cast was all the rage at the time. Lively starred as Serena van der Woodsen, the blonde who reappeared in town after disappearing for a year to attend boarding school. The series followed Serena and her friends as they dealt with traditional high school woes from the lens of the wealthy elite, all while trying to figure out who the mysterious Gossip Girl is.

While the series is her most well-known role, Lively was never the same after closing the chapter on playing Serena. From the foundation it provided for her net worth to the roles she portrayed after, everything about her life changed.

"Gossip Girl" wasn't Blake Lively's first major role, but it was the one that sent her career soaring to new heights. Fans of the show's source material — the books of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar — knew they wanted Lively to portray Serena van der Woodsen. "Fans of the book had seen me in 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,'" the actress said to Collider. "They took it upon themselves to vote for me to be Serena van der Woodsen." Showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage took the fans seriously, reaching out to Lively, though it's not secret that she almost turned them down.

The show took off, creating an anchor for The CW. During the Writers Guild of America strike of 2008, "Gossip Girl" aired on a loop, bringing in new watchers and steadily building a fan base eager for more. The popularity caused the cast to be thrust into the limelight, with paparazzi lingering around set in hopes of taking photos of the young stars and even an internal teen hacking into an email to sell and leak Season 4 scripts.

Despite the success, in the years after "Gossip Girl" ended, Lively didn't feel like she was a celebrity. "I'll never feel like I've arrived," she told Vogue when she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2015. "The people I look up to the most are the people that are continuing to up their game."

Blake Lively was fully prepared to leave acting behind before landing the role of Serena on "Gossip Girl." While "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" was successful, the actress was set on finishing school, returning to complete her senior year of high school. "I thought, well I need to finish out high school," Lively said to Collider in 2017. "I'm not going to just jump on this acting train and hope that it takes me somewhere."

She did choose to defer college for a year to give acting a real try, but only shot a single movie during that time. Lively decided to go to college at the year's end, only for "Gossip Girl" to fall in her lap. Though she was on the fence about the role, production told her they could arrange for her to attend Columbia University part-time while filming the series, allowing her to still attend school while continuing her acting career. They even suggested the show would slow down after the first season, allowing her to take classes more than one day a week.

Unfortunately, this didn't work out as well as production planned, and Lively didn't go to college. "This is advice to anyone: when they say, 'We promise, but we can't put it in writing,' there's a reason they can't put it in writing," she said to Vanity Fair in 2017. "But no, the show didn't slow down. It just got more and more."

Part of the appeal of "Gossip Girl" was the fashion, and every outlet and fan wanted to know how to look like their favorite character. "A lot of magazines would call and want to do interviews on how you get the 'Serena look,'" series hairstylist Jennifer Johnson told Vanity Fair.

Fans also looked to the series for style inspiration, something retailers and designers realized early on. "When we came back with Season 2, so many designers were lining up and wanting to be a part of it—they wanted their stuff on either Blake [Lively] or Leighton [Meester]," series costume designer Eric Daman said to Vanity Fair. With the spotlight on the cast and their style choices, it created the foundation for Lively's fashion to be watched for the rest of her career, resulting in lists of what she wears on press tours and plenty of articles showing her best looks over the years.

Now Lively is particularly known for her Met Gala looks rather than what Serena is wearing to class. Her first Met Gala was in 2008, where she wore a black Ralph Lauren dress. Since her first appearance, she's only continued to take on more daring looks, including a blush Burberry dress in 2016, a deep red Versace dress in 2018, and a Statue of Liberty inspired custom dress by Versace in 2022.

After being thrust into the limelight as "Gossip Girl" made a big splash, Blake Lively realized the importance of having parts of her life private from what fans and the media knew about her. While dating her series co-star Penn Badgley, the two kept their romance under the radar. Producer Joshua Safran didn't even know the two had broken up until they were filming the Season 2 finale; the breakup had happened months prior. "They kept the breakup hidden from the crew, which you could never do now," Safran said to Vanity Fair. "I don't even know how they did it."

As Lively transitioned from "Gossip Girl" to being a mother, she continued controlling her privacy by hiding her first pregnancy. When she announced it, it was on her own time with a photo on her lifestyle blog instead of selling the story to a media outlet. "That was my way of owning that moment," she said to Allure. "It was a struggle, because we want to keep our privacy, but we also don't want our lives to be exploited by other people."

Lively and Ryan Reynolds continue to keep parts of their life private, including, for a long time, the name of their fourth child. The name was casually announced during a speech Reynolds gave in July 2024 while promoting his film "Deadpool & Wolverine," marking yet another time they've released information about their private life on their own terms.

Blake Lively's time on "Gossip Girl" marked the beginning of her journey to becoming a multi-millionaire. She is estimated to have a $30 million net worth, but that didn't happen overnight.

Lively is reported to have earned up to $60,000 an episode for "Gossip Girl," though this has not been confirmed by the actress herself. Some sources report she made about $50,000 per episode during the show's third season, giving us a bench mark. Even if that's the maximum she earned for an episode, there are 121 installments in the series, creating a serious nest egg for the young star (even after taxes).

This kind of star power and worth paved the way for Lively to negotiate higher salaries for future projects, like the reported $800,000 for her role as Emily in the 2018 "A Simple Favor." While fame gave her bargaining power, it also presented opportunities for brand deals and to start her own businesses, which continue to contribute to her net worth. She founded the drink companies Betty Buzz, a sparkling drink mixer brand in 2021, and Betty Booze, an off-shoot of alcoholic canned seltzers in 2023. In 2024, she launched her own hair care line, Blake Brown, with Target.

Landing the role of Serena meant moving to New York, at least for a good chunk of the year, since "Gossip Girl" filmed on location. This wasn't a downside to Blake Lively, who has since made a home with her husband and children in the state.

Though the actress grew up in Burbank, California, New York presented new opportunities, especially when it came to her interests in fashion. "I grew up in Burbank [California] and I love living in New York City so much [because of the shopping] and I now have a way better wardrobe," Lively said to The Independent. "The icing on the cake was being there during couture fashion week." However, it isn't just the fashion that she loves about the Big Apple. "One of the reasons I love living in New York so much is that it has more of a European feel than California because there is more culture and history," Lively continued.

In 2012, despite "Gossip Girl" ending, Lively and Ryan Reynolds purchased a multi-million dollar home in Bedford, New York as their primary residence. They had other celebrity neighbors and were only an hour outside of the city. The following year they moved on to a larger home in the same area, which would become their main residence. In 2017, the couple purchased a loft in Tribeca, confirming they weren't leaving New York any time soon.

After spending over 100 episodes as Serena, Blake Lively was ready for a change in her life. For her, this meant a bit of a life reset, which included a several year hiatus from acting. The CW series came to a close in 2012, and her next on-screen role was in the 2015 film "The Age of Adaline," a role that showed she was putting her days of playing a teenager behind her.

During her hiatus, Lively embarked on a new venture: a lifestyle blog. Preserve opened online in 2014 as a way for people to make connections with different creators and share stories and experiences. Her goal was for the site to make "a difference in people's lives, whether superficially or in a meaningful way," she once told Vogue. The blog also became a place for her to announce major life news, like her first pregnancy with her husband Ryan Reynolds.

The actress wanted to be in a business she had more control over, since acting was anything but that, while exploring her own interests. "It taps into so many of my own passions, but it also is a business that I can control," Lively said to Allure. "If I can be successful at this, I have security for my family and my babies."

Unfortunately, Preserve was only open for a year, with Blake Lively closing the site before it could reach its full potential. While she was excited about the project, at the time she felt she may have opened it before it was ready, leading to a steep curve as they tried to catch up with their own missions and goals while already online.

The decision to close the site was a tough one, with Lively knowing what reactions to her perceived failure would be, but she is proud of the choice to stay true to herself. "I never thought I would have the bravery to actually do that, to take the site dark and to say, 'You know what? I haven't created something that is as true and impactful as I know it can and will be,'" she said to Variety.

In addition to not embodying the reason she started the platform, the actress felt her celebrity and status was being used to prop up the site in a detrimental way, since the intention was never to highlight her fame. "It was so never meant to be that, and that kind of became the crutch because it was already up and already running, and it's hard to build a brand when you're running full steam ahead—how do you catch up," Lively continued. Another website has now taken over the original web address.

After her hiatus, Blake Lively returned to the big screen as the titular role in "The Age of Adaline." The movie marked a significant career shift for the actress as she left behind her days of playing teenagers and doing fluffy romances and comedies, though she dabbled with horror during her "Gossip Girl" days and after.

After starring in "The Age of Adaline," Lively's next projects were thrillers. She starred in the horror thriller "The Shallows," playing a medical student stranded in the oceans off the coast Mexico after a shark attack. She continued to work in the genre, playing lead roles in 2018's "A Simple Favor" and 2020's "The Rhythm Section." (The former has a sequel in the works, and the latter led to a stunt that almost ended her career.) She has also ventured into voice work, lending her voice to the 2024 movies "IF" and "Deadpool and Wolverine."

While "Gossip Girl" can be considered a drama in its own right, Lively took part in a different kind of drama as her career continued to grow. In the 2017 film "All I See Is You," the drama centers on a crumbling marriage instead of teenage antics. In the movie, the actress played Gina, one half to a married couple struggling to find their new normal as she had a cornea transplant to help with her sight. Lively's other dramas include 2016's "Café Society" and 2024's "It Ends with Us."

Serena van der Woodsen is an iconic character to an entire generation, but it wasn't the only time Blake Lively portrayed a character that somehow makes the audience envy, love, and loathe her all at the same time. Emily from "A Simple Favor" proves lightning can strike twice.

In "A Simple Favor," Lively is Emily, a fashion company's PR director who oozes allure and intrigue. She seemingly has everything: a great job, an attractive husband, a beautiful home. The other parents gossip about her, constantly wondering what she's up to and what she'll be doing next. Part of what makes the character work so well is that Lively was already familiar with playing someone similar. Serena had the same intrigue, both for her classmates on "Gossip Girl" and for the audiences that tuned in every week. 

Not only are Emily and Serena similar in appearance, but in personality. They are nice to those they deem worthy, and who they let into their life — and cold to others. Both women have no qualms about saying what they mean, even if it's something others would never voice aloud. While the inspiration for Emily didn't come from Lively's days on "Gossip Girl," audiences can't help but notice the similarities, with one Redditor even calling it "a depiction of Serena as an adult."

"Gossip Girl" was the role that cemented Blake Lively's place in the industry, but it is also her only significant television series on her resume. She hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2009, and appeared in episodes of "Sesame Street" in 2018 and 2020, but the actress has not held a major TV role since her time as Serena van der Woodsen came to a close.

As her first, and only television show, Lively experienced the TV production grind during the era of 20+ episode seasons. "We were shooting two to three episodes at once," Lively said to Collider. "We would shoot 16 to 18 hour days every single day." The teens would go from one crew to the next, everything in a bit of a rush as they tried to shoot all the material they needed to as they were handed lines at the last minute. It was a whirlwind type of experience that not everyone wants to do again, even if it made for a great lineup of episodes. 

Lively firmly moved her career into the film sphere and didn't look back, though she almost returned to television in 2018. The Hollywood Reporter noted that the actress was in talks with Amazon Studios for a scripted fashion series. In 2019, the studio entered a first-look deal with Lively, for both the originally announced project and another, but neither came to fruition.