say goodbye to Gossip Girl after three seasons it was no walk in the park for Taylor Momsen.
“Leaving such a thriving career was not easy,” Momsen, 32, said during an appearance Wednesday, Nov. 5, on “Call Her Daddy” Podcast.. “It was an easy decision for me… Getting out of a contract wasn’t easy.”
Momsen appeared as Jenny Humphrey Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2010.
“Season 1 is a whirlwind,” Momsen recalled during Wednesday’s podcast, noting that she wanted to leave the show “around Season 2” in favor of her band, The Pretty Reckless.
“It started with a ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ but you’re in a key contract with CW, Warner Brothers, you know, all that stuff,” Momsen explained, saying she didn’t want to be “stuck” in her role on the show. “It was a very long battle of me arguing (with) everybody: ‘Go get me out of this. I can’t do this anymore. This is killing me.’ I have something else I want to do with my life and it has nothing to do with this.”
She recalled being seen as “ungrateful” for her thoughts about wanting to leave.
“‘How dare you turn your back on something that has been so successful for you?’ it was hard (to hear),” he said. “I just said, ‘F*** you’. … I was very defensive.”
Momsen couldn’t get out of her contract, so she went Gossip Girl executive producers Josh Schwartz i Stephanie Savage for help They had “many conversations” before finally removing her from the show.
Taylor Momsen as Jenny Humphrey
Courtesy Everett Collection“I really have to give them credit for doing this for me, because they didn’t have to,” she continued. “They took me off the show so I could go on tour and be in a band.”
Momsen joked she was “kind of an Irish underdog” after Season 3 and didn’t tell any of her castmates she was leaving the show.
“Everybody knew I had a band. I would play them, because I was working on the first record while I was on the show,” he added. “I went in and played songs and played music. But I don’t think anyone knew how serious I was at the time.”
Blake Lively looks back fondly on her past. “Gossip Girl of the Summer turned 18…” Lively, 38, wrote via Instagram on Sunday, September 21, reflecting on the 18th anniversary of her hit series, Gossip Girl. “This show was my university. It was my education, my social life, my hard work, my nights and my mornings, (…)
Momsen’s last episode as Jenny was the season 3 finale, “Last Tango, Then Paris”. Jenny sleeps with Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) just before Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) reveals her love for him. Blair finally finds out what happened between Jenny and Chuck before banishing Jenny from New York.
The last scene Momsen filmed as Jenny was actually her last moment on set.
“I think it’s me on the train going to live with my mother, or whatever the story is to write,” he recalled. “I’m leaning against the window. I think that was the wrap scene, which is very appropriate.”
Momsen briefly returned as Jenny for the show’s final episode in 2012.
“I came back for the final,” he said. “As a fan of TV and the shows that I love, when you get the whole cast back together … you want to wrap it up and wrap it up.”