Gossip Girl reboot will include ‘a lot of queer content’
The cast of the original Gossip Girl series. (The CW)
The upcoming Gossip Girl reboot will be less white and less straight than the original, says writer and executive producer Joshua Safran.
The original Gossip Girl followed a cast of privileged teenagers living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Seven years after it ended, the series is being primed for a reboot on the American streaming service HBO Max, and this time around, it will be much more diverse
“There was not a lot of representation the first time around on the show,” Joshua Safran, who wrote for and executive produced the original series, told Vulture.
“I was the only gay writer I think the entire time I was there. Even when I went to private school in New York in the 90s, the school didn’t necessarily reflect what was on Gossip Girl.
It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now.
“So, this time around the leads are non-white. There’s a lot of queer content on this show. It is very much dealing with the way the world looks now, where wealth and privilege come from, and how you handle that. The thing I can’t say is there is a twist, and that all relates to the twist.”
Gossip Girl reboot to be released in 2020
Safran is executive producing the new series, which will arrive in 2020 and has been described as a sequel.
It will be set 12-13 years after the original’s finale, and will follow a new generation of students at Constance Billard School for Girls.
Kristen Bell will return as the narrator, though it is unclear whether any of the other cast members will reprise their roles.
The show launched the careers of Blake Lively, Leighton Meister and Ed Westwick – whose character Chuck had one of a small handful of minor gay storylines.
It also featured a now-infamous cameo from Ivanna Trump and her husband Jared Kushner back in 2010.
The show’s co-creator Josh Schwartz addressed the appearance in 2017, explaining: “People wanted to be on the show, it was a crazy thing.”
