SERENA VAN DER WOODSEN Serena is blonde, navy-blue-eyed, and ethereally beautiful. She has a perfect body, free of any imperfections, despite never working out. Serena is very smart, but is constantly being told she is not working to her full potential. Like her sometimes-best-friend, Blair Waldorf, she and her family are prominent in New York society. Serena dabbled in modeling before landing a starring role in Breakfast at Fred’s, a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Serena keeps a steady string of admirers, including Dan Humphrey, Nate Archibald, Aaron Rose, and an entire a capella group at Yale. Despite the copious attention she receives from the opposite sex, Serena constantly longs for true romance. Serena is much less demanding and uptight than Blair; however, she shares with Blair the tendency to be self-centered. Her brother, Erik, attends Brown; her parents rarely appear in the series.

BLAIR WALDORF Blair is a short brunette and slender, with brilliant blue eyes and a fox-like face. She is a hopeless romantic who idolizes Audrey Hepburn, Blair’s sensitive side contrasts with her tendency to be bitchy and controlling. She is rather vain, though her friendship with uber-girl Serena van der Woodsen causes her to be insecure at times. Blair uses her charm, money, and social clout to get whatever she wants. Her father, once a uptight lawyer, now lives in a French chateau with his various gay lovers and his two adopted Cambodian sons, Ping and Pong. Her mother is flaky, society hostess Eleanor Waldorf Rose, who married Cyrus Rose. She has a younger brother, Tyler; a step-brother, Aaron; and a baby sister, Yale. She has a turbulent relationship with Nate Archibald throughout the series, losing him to other girls several times, including Jenny Humphrey and her sometimes-best-friend Serena.

NATHANIEL (NATE) ARCHIBALD Nate is a wealthy, good-looking lacrosse player at St. Jude’s school. He has wavy golden hair and sparkling, emerald green eyes. His mother is a French socialite and his father is a former Navy captain. He smokes copious amounts of marijuana and was once caught and sent to rehab for buying a dimebag in the park. He has dated a number of girls including Jenny Humphrey, Serena, Georgina Spark, and Lexie, but his only serious relationship has been with his on again/off again girlfriend Blair.

DAN HUMPHREY A thin, sensitive, chain-smoking, caffeine-addicted poet who often sees the darker side to things and has said his favorite word is “death”. Dan is a romantic whose imagination runs off wildly at the worst times. He over-analyzes and is easily frustrated. He is romantically linked to Vanessa Abrams, who appears to be the love of his life, but he hasn’t always been the best boyfriend. Prior to his relationship with Vanessa, he spent two years being in love with Serena van der Woodsen. He has a very close relationship with his sister, Jenny and his father Rufus.

JENNY HUMPHREY At age 14, Jenny is the youngest of the Gossip Girl characters. She has wild, curly brown hair and an enormous DD chest on her tiny 5′ frame. She is the younger sister of Dan Humphrey. Jenny is an aspiring artist and holds a secret desire to be a model like Serena van der Woodsen, whom she eventually befriends. She often tries to fit in with the rich girls at her school, even though she does not hold a place in their social sphere. Despite her lack of social clout, she stole Nate Archibald from Blair Waldorf at one point. She often goes on wild and embarrassing exploits to set up an image for herself- for example.

CHUCK BASS A rich, lust-driven antagonist whose list of the finer things in life is short: sex and alcohol. He once came close to taking advantage of a vulnerable Jenny Humphrey in a bathroom and tried to sleep with an inebriated Serena van der Woodsen. Nobody is certain about his sexual orientation. Chuck has an obnoxious pet monkey named Sweetie, who can often be found perching on his shoulder and wearing coordinated outfits. Everyone, quite frankly, despises him, but because his bank account and good looks have just always been part of the latest party, they just shrug off his egotistical antics and accept him for what he is; a rich party animal.

VANESSA ABRAMS Vanessa is a budding filmmaker. She is the polar opposite of her Constance Billard School for Girls classmates. Her parents are hippie artists who live in Vermont, while her sister Ruby is bassist for the band SugarDaddy. She’s described in the books as pale and she shaves her own head. She has a shaky relationship with Dan Humphrey. After Ruby comes back from a world tour with her new fiance, Piotr, Vanessa moves in with the Humphreys, further complicating her relationship with Dan. She is attending NYU at the end of the book series.

RUFUS HUMPHREY A former rock star whose marriage has fallen apart, he is also an owner of a fledging art gallery. Determined to give his children a quality education, he enrolled them at private day schools which lead him to bump heads more than once with his former flame, Lillian van der Woodsen. He got a divorce from his wife, Alison Humphrey who was having an affair with a man named Alex. He has difficulty, as a single parent, managing his growing children, in particular the strong-willed Jenny, and often enlists Lily’s aid. Although he and Lily attempted to rekindle their old relationship prior to Lily’s marriage, she ultimate chose to remain friends with Rufus and to marry Bart Bass.

LILY VAN DER WOODSEN The multiple-divorced, ex-ballerina, and socialite mother of Serena and Eric van der Woodsen, Lillian has a colored history as a former groupie of Dan and Jenny’s father, Rufus, that she would rather not acknowledge. She is currently married to Bart Bass. Despite her constant concern for appearances and status in high society, it can be assumed that she lived as indulgently as Serena during her wild child years. Her similarity to Serena can especially be seen when she cries and is unable to make any decisions, both of which are behaviours commonly seen in Serena.