“Gossip Girl” may have been plagued with the eternal question of Dan, Nate or Chuck, but one of its stars was crushing on an entirely different CW star: Jared Padalecki. Taylor Momsen, who played Jenny Humphrey in “Gossip Girl,” opened up about her first love on Wednesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s “Podcrushed.”
“I had a huge crush, like my first childhood crush was on Jared Padalecki,” Momsen told “Podcrushed” co-host and her fellow “Gossip Girl” star Penn Badgley.
Momsen revealed that the first time she saw the “Supernatural” and “Gilmore Girls” star, she had “never been so starstruck in my life.”
“I went up and I was like, ‘He’s gonna fall in love with me. I’m in love with him. How can he not fall in love with me?’ and I went up to him and said ‘Hi,’ and he was so tall, and I had to look way up,” Momsen said. “He was nice, but he didn’t love me back, so that was my first love, my first heartbreak all in one fell swoop.”
From that moment forward, Momsen decided she was going to wear heels “all the time.” “Because if I had only been taller, Jared would’ve loved me,” Momsen joked.
For the first four seasons of “Gossip Girl,” Momsen starred as Dan’s (Badgely) social ladder-obsessed little sister Jenny. When the pilot for the series was filmed, Momsen was only 12, making her the youngest person on set. Though she emphasized that the cast was nice to her and that Connor Paolo in particular took her “under his wing,” she explained that acting had always been a “childhood thing” she had been put into since the age to two.
“I didn’t fit in with you guys. I didn’t fit in with Connor’s friends,” Momsen said. “That’s when music became a solace for me.”
When Momsen told the producers that she wanted to leave the series, they were unable to let her out of her contract. However, they did largely write Jenny off the series on the condition that Momsen wasn’t allowed to act in anything else. “They really allowed me to follow my dream. So I’m forever grateful to that,” the current Pretty Reckless frontwoman said.
Momsen also opened up about Jenny’s memorable makeover. Known for its preppy designer looks, “Gossip Girl” shocked audiences later in the series with a brand new style for Jenny complete with fishnets, heavy black eyeliner and chunky black shoes. According to Momsen, that transformation largely started due to a haircut.
“I cut and bleached my hair at some point and didn’t exactly tell anyone,” Momsen said, noting that the haircut happened during a hiatus from the series. “So when we came back it was like ‘We’ve got to write this in now.’”
Jenny’s makeover was also an attempt by costume designer Eric Daman to make Momsen feel more at ease with her character. The paparazzi would routinely photograph the cast as they were filming in New York. Over time, Momsen became increasingly uncomfortable about the media conflating her fictional character with her real self.
“We were all struggling with being mistaken for this person,” Badgely said. “And none of us, I think, had the maturity to not take it personally and know it has nothing to do with you.”
