Leighton Meester has claimed that a pair of Marc Jacobs shoes won her the role on Gossip Girl.

The actress has admitted that the risk of not being able to pay her rent was worth the purchase of the designer footwear.

Speaking to Grazia, the 24-year-old said: “I’d moved back to New York, I was living in a third-floor walk-up in the West Village and I had no clothes because my luggage had been lost on the flight from LA.

“I saw this pair of red leopard-print Marc Jacobs shoes, turned to my mum and said, ‘If I buy them I can’t pay rent.’ Mum just said, ‘Rent can wait’.

“As I bought them I imagined that these would be the shoes that would win me the part. They did.”