Remember when the Parents Television Council declared Gossip Girl "mind-blowingly inappropriate"? Well, in retrospect, Jessica Szohr thinks they had a point.
Having looked back on her days playing Vanessa Abrams in the racy CW series, she can safely say that her kids are not allowed to binge the series. "Being a mom, when I watch it back I'm like, 'Well, we're never ever going to watch the show," the star told E! News in an exclusive interview, adding stepdaughter Lexi and 1-year-old Bowie "can't see this."
The star, who recently launched the Gossip Girl podcast XOXO, marveled at how executive producers pushed the envelope by featuring high schoolers committing all sorts of mischief, threesomes, drug abuse, etc., saying, "In that first season, what goes down is insane."
Detailing a laundry list from the first 22 episodes, she continued, " Serena [Blake Lively] admits that she killed someone, Blair [Leighton Meester] loses her virginity to Chuck [Ed Westwick] in the back of a limo, Nate [Chace Crawford] has an affair with an older woman, Vanessa comes back, Dan [Penn Badgley] and Serena's relationship, Lily [Kelly Rutherford] gets proposed to. That's just season one and I've only said six things!"
And it's not as if things got any tamer in the 99 episodes that followed. Since the original series came to an end in 2012, the cast has moved on to other projects, but Jessica said that she and her co-stars, including Ed and Taylor Momsen, are looking forward to revisiting the series that made them famous in her new iHeart Radio podcast. "There's just a lot of fun conversations and it definitely like brings warm fuzzy feelings," the host shared, adding that they learn some things too because "a lot of us had not really watched it."
However, there's one topic that Jessica won't be getting into: cast relationships. She acknowledged that fans are interested in the real-life romances that developed behind the scenes but said, "It's not a gossip situation."
Yes, "there are a lot of fun conversations, but I try to stay away from that," Jessica explained. "If some people happen to bring it up in their conversations with me, then it's there but I don't pry."
She added that with all the things going on in the world, she just wants to give people something to look forward to: "I want it to be like a warm, fuzzy walk down memory lane. And obviously not everything is unicorns and rainbows all the time, so we do talk about the challenges of a successful show and being the ages we were living in the city and all that. But it's not like this walk down memory lane where we're gossiping and getting into personal stuff."
The first episode debuted on National Gossip Girl Day, Wednesday, Jan. 26, bringing with it a whole new batch of behind the scenes info. To learn what Jessica has uncovered, check out our recap here!
XOXO With Jessica Szohr is available on iHeartRadio and everywhere podcasts are heard.