Why Gossip Girl Nearly Scrapped Kristen Bell’s Voice Over

It’s hard to imagine an episode of The CW’s “Gossip Girl” without Kristen Bell’s iconic voiceover. The way the actress utters silly but deeply memorable lines like “Hey there, Upper East Siders” and “XOXO, Gossip Girl” helped solidify the show as a campy classic. With all that considered, it’s hard to believe that test audiences apparently weren’t fans of Bell’s narration, and series creators Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz nearly cut it altogether.

During an appearance on “XOXO with Jessica Szohr” — hosted by Szohr, who played Vanessa Abrams on “Gossip Girl” — Schwartz and Savage revealed that Bell almost didn’t narrate the show. “Interestingly, every time the Gossip Girl voiceover would kick in, it would drop,” Schwartz said, with “drop” referring to the interest of test audiences. “People were into it, and then like, ‘Who’s this voice that’s coming in and distracting me?’ Do you lose the voice-over? [We decided] we can’t. That’s part of the show and we just have to ride with it.”

There was another strange complication: at the time, Bell was also headlining “Veronica Mars” on The CW, which also featured her as a narrator. (The major difference between the two is that Veronica’s inner monologue accompanies Bell’s performance as the title character, whereas Bell is never actually seen on “Gossip Girl,” save for a cheeky cameo in the series finale.) So how did Schwartz and Savage handle that? Despite initial hesitations, Bell’s performance spoke for itself: “When she recorded it, she created an entirely different character with just her voice than how she read Veronica Mars,” Schwartz said. Ultimately, she was “one of the most critical pieces of casting in the whole dang thing.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of “Gossip Girl,” or if it’s been a while since you last binged the absurdly delightful teen drama, here’s a refresher: The series opens with teen socialite Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), who left Manhattan under mysterious circumstances, returning from her boarding school in Connecticut with no notice. Serena’s classmates and other teenagers throughout the city read about her surprise return on their phones via a “Gossip Girl blast,” introducing a major theme for the rest of the series — there’s a mysterious blogger known only as Gossip Girl who reports on the exploits of a specific group of teenagers on the wealthy Upper East Side of New York City. 

Beyond Serena, the titular blogger tends to focus pointedly on Serena’s best friend and queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), the boy often torn between Blair and Serena, Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), über-wealthy bad boy Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), and Brooklyn-based outcasts and siblings Dan and Jenny Humphrey (Penn Badgley and Taylor Momsen).

But who is Gossip Girl? It’s not Kristen Bell, though she and Rachel Bilson do make cameos in the show’s series finale, during which they audition to play characters based on Blair and Serena in a fictional adaptation of Dan’s hit novel “Inside.” According to Schwartz himself, the blogger was originally supposed to be Serena’s younger brother Eric (Connor Paolo) or Nate, but the show changed course late in the game, revealing Dan to be Gossip Girl — despite Dan spending a frankly inordinate amount of time reacting to his own Gossip Girl blasts throughout the show.

“Gossip Girl” eventually got a reboot in 2021 on HBO Max, with Joshua Safran serving as showrunner. (Safran was previously the showrunner for two seasons of the original “Gossip Girl.”) Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage also returned as executive producers, with Kristen Bell back on board to provide her voiceover. On Jessica Szohr’s podcast, Schwartz explained why Bell’s involvement was deeply important for the reboot. “When we did the new show, which we knew would be a new generation and cast. The one piece we needed to have was Kristen,” he said. “That was the one piece that was gonna make it feel like ‘Gossip Girl’ because she’s so — she’s the tone. She set the tone.”

Unfortunately for the “Gossip Girl” reboot — whose cast included Jordan Alexander, Whitney Peak, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Emily Alyn Lind and Evan Mock, among others, as a new generation of privileged Upper East Siders — Bell’s voice wasn’t enough to keep it afloat. The show was canceled in January 2023 after two seasons, and it shows no signs of returning. This may be for the best, however, as the reboot ultimately lacked the wild spark of the original.

Still, Bell’s voiceover as an obsessed gossip blogger lives on in perpetuity, so it’s a good thing Schwartz and Savage ignored those (incorrect) test audiences. All six seasons of the original “Gossip Girl” are available to stream on Netflix and HBO Max. Both seasons of the reboot can also be found on HBO Max.