One thing Gossip Girl absolutely was NOT known for was diversity. We had a full cast lineup of mostly white people, and that’s just a fact.

Gossip Girl will forever be one of my favorite shows of all time, but the show lacked diversity and that wasn’t ideal.

I’m an independent culture journalist after professionally writing entertainment articles for iHeartRadio, rapTV, and other outlets for the last seven years.

I do a lot of deep dives, analyzing Gossip Girl, and right now I want to shine a light on 10 different women of color who I believe helped to make Gossip Girl a more iconic show, even though none of them were truly considered leading characters in the show.

Vanessa Abrams

I obviously have to start with Vanessa, who was the closest to a main character, gossip girl with any melanin in her skin at all. On the show, Vanessa was racially ambiguous with her actual ethnicity, never being explicitly explained or described. We did see her mother cast by a black actress, but we never saw her father, so as a viewer, I assumed her dad was probably white. The actual actress he plays Vanessa is Jessica Szohr, and she is of mixed ethnicity, part Hungarian and part African-American. girl fans have conflicting feelings about Vanessa with some people who adore her and others who thought she was super annoying. The complaints I’ve seen about Vanessa are that she was super judgmental of rich people on the upper east side, but the positive comments I see about her cover the fact that she was hard-working and ambitious, knowing she had less money than everyone around her. She was super intelligent and advanced when it came to academics, and she had a really fun and free fashion sense. Vanessa definitely stirred up trouble on Gossip Girl every now and then, but I still think she made the show more iconic with unforgettable scenes like that three-way bedroom moment with Dan Humphrey and Olivia Burke, when she looked like an ethereal angel in that see-through dress the night, Jenny failed at sabotaging her, and when she helped Dan get his novel published.

Raina Thorpe

Of course we have to talk about Raina, who is absolutely one of the reasons got some pro is more iconic even though her arc on the show wasn’t very long. From her eloquence to her upscale style, Raina was the type of woman who stood out in a crowd. She landed relationship relationships with two of our gossip girl leading guys, which says a lot about what an iconic character she was. She dated both Chuck Bass and Nate Archibald, despite the fact that they’re friends with each other. The last time Chuck and Nate were super interested in the same girl was with Blair Waldorf, and that almost led them to a physical brawl. Raina came along and was able to catch attention from both of them similar to the way Blair was. I feel that Raina made season 4 of the show more interesting as she grappled with the hard reality that her father was not the person she thought he was. But one thing I really loved about her is the way she placed such love and loyalty on family . so much so that it turned her off to see Chuck being rude to Lily van der Woodsen after Lily had stepped up to be his stepmother. That type of behavior turned Raina off because of her views on protecting family connections.

Nelly Yuki

Nelly Yuki went through the ringer on Gossip Girl because of Blair Waldorf. Blair did not make her life easier, but Nelly absolutely got her lick back. We watched Nelly get tormented and bullied here and there by Blair during their high school days at Constance, even to the point that Blair sabotage Nelly before the SATs so that Nelly wouldn’t score as high. Blair was desperate to get selected for Yale university and she didn’t want Nelly to get in her way, so she did one of the most vindictive things ever by trying to mess with Nelly‘s mental health before taking their exams. However, Nelly still came out on top, and we saw the way she did when she returned in season 6, and had Blair instantly second guessing and questioning all of her bad behaviors of the past. Blair is my all-time favorite Gossip Girl character, and I absolutely adore her, but we can all admit and agree she was a bully. And it was actually nice to see a little bit of justice for Nelly when she returned as a reporter for Women’s Wear Daily to Interview Blair after Blair had taken over Waldorf Designs. Nelly got the opportunity to sort of Blair in her place after those years of bullying back in the day.

Penelope Shafai

Plenty of people try to dismiss Penelope Shafai as nothing more than a side character or a spiteful minion to Blair Waldorf in early seasons of the show, but that’s actually what made her a pretty interesting character to follow. On top of that, she’s strikingly gorgeous! I always questioned why she didn’t have higher confidence or self-esteem to be more of a leader than a follower, but it’s neither here or there. She still made the show more interesting as one of the bad bitch girlies of Blair‘s social circle. Penelope was along for the ride, causing chaos and creating drama, which made the show more fun to watch, even though she was never really on the good side. Some of her shadiest moments include helping Blair bully Jenny, helping Jenny sabotage Vanessa‘s dress, working with Blair to haze their teacher, Rachel Carr.

Sawyer Bennett

Sawyer is very similar to Penelope in my opinion in the sense that I found her to be way too pretty to just be another follower. However, that’s exactly what she ended up being. While Penelope was a minion to Blair, Sawyer was a minion to Jenny Humphrey after Jenny became queen bee. Sawyer was a loyal follower of Jenny in season 3 of the show, first appearing an episode called How to Succeed in Bassness. My only real qualm about Sawyer on Gossip Girl is that she wasn’t featured in more episodes since I feel like she could’ve added more flair. The actress behind the role, Chanel Maya Banks, went missing briefly in 2024, which had fans concerned with multiple articles published about it, but she was found safely not long after. Sawyer had the looks and the style to become truly iconic, but her lack of screen time held her back, in my opinion.

Jane Bettinger

Jane Bettinger was Serena van der Woodsen’s boss when Serena moved to California and tried to pursue a career in Hollywood as a publicist assistant. Serena’s mom, Lily, did not take that job seriously but Serena absolutely did, and that’s because Jane believed in her. Jane’s role as a movie producer shed a light on the power and ambition of a beautiful Black woman in entertainment. She definitely ended up clashing with Serena eventually, but I appreciated her arc on the show because she gave Serena the confidence that she could succeed in the working world without nepotism. She comes across with mean vibes because she’s demanding and blunt with Serena… and she showcases the ruthless side of media production. She also pushes Serena to abandon loyalty for a more profitable outcome regarding Dan’s book. But she’s not actually evil. She’s competent and strategic. She’s good at doing her job. She actually recognizes Serena’s usefulness and potential. She’s basically a cold, power-driven career woman archetype — not morally chaotic, but she’s not nurturing either. Jane Bettinger wasn’t a bad person. She was just everything Serena pretended she wanted to be. And that makes her an iconic addition to the show.

Isabel Coates

Isabel was another minion to Blair, and even though she was a side character on the show, she still added something cool to the show as one of the iconic members of the elite social circle. Isabel represented the infrastructure of popularity. She contributed to living evidence that Blair’s power only works when others enforce it. She’s fits the bill of a social climber who chooses social safety and stability over individuality. She’s not evil like Georgina, not ambitious like Jenny, not all powerful like Blair — but she’s a crucial part of the quiet machine that keeps the system running. Isabel embodies Constance elitism on campus. She represents the polished, coordinated, mean-girl aesthetic of early Gossip Girl: headbands, hierarchy, unspoken rules, curated cruelty. And there’s no way you can;t understand the iconic vibe of that.

Kati Farkas

Kati was another minion to Blair who I wish we could have seen more from. Just like Penelope and Isabel, she was another symbol of Upper East Side prestige as part of the popular crowd on campus. She was part of Blair’s elite circle and she contributed to the hierarchy energy of it all with her presence alone. She was big on social shunning, the circulation of gossip, and public humiliation tactics. But she certainly knew how to accessorize her school uniform to make herself stand out alongside the likes of main characters, Blair and Serena. The followed the hyper-feminine and ritzy dress code rules to make sure she fit in with headbands, tights, and beyond. There wasn’t any character growth from Kati since she left the show early, but I feel there could have been at least a few truly iconic moments from her if she had stuck around.

Zoe (Columbia)

I was happy to see Zoe as one of Blair’s minions at Columbia University in Seasons 3 and 4 of the show. That’s because I also watched Brooklyn 99 not long ago, so recognizing Melissa Fumero was pretty cool. Blair went from ruling over her classmates at Constance to feeling like she couldn’t hold her own at NYU. But she found her stride at Columbia, and that’s where she connected with Zoe as one of the new members of her college social circle. Pretty quickly when Blair arrives at Columbia, she tries to recreate her high school hierarchy statua. Zoe becomes one of the girls who falls into that orbit. Zoe wants proximity to Blair because Blair represents power, legacy, and elite status — especially at an Ivy League setting. The reason she can be labeled iconic or worth remembering in the Gossip Girl fandom is that she actually helped shake things up for Blair regarding the whole queen bee narrative. Zoe opened Blair’s eyes to understanding that queen bee bullying tactic don’t translate as smoothly in college, even if those exact tactics worked in high school. Zoe isn’t blindly loyal to Blair. She’s opportunistic above all else. Her arc contributed to Blair’s growth and maturity as a character.

Laurel

Laurel is one of Eleanor Waldorf’s professional colleagues during the Waldorf Designs storyline — she’s part of the fashion-world circle surrounding Eleanor Waldorf. She’s a very minor character, but here’s what she represents. She’s a Fashion Industry Insider. She exists within the elite Manhattan fashion scene — meaning she’s connected to high-level design, production, and business decisions. She’s a major player in Eleanor’s professional world. Her presence reinforces that Eleanor operates in a competitive, polished, image-driven industry. Laurel helps flesh out that environment. She’s a sharp symbol of adult Upper East Side power. Unlike the teen drama chaos, Laurel represents adult ambition — contracts, brand reputation, fashion shows, business alliances. She’s not a villain, not a schemer, not emotionally central. She functions as a mirror to show Eleanor’s authority. She doesn’t get a personal arc, betrayal moment, or scandal storyline, but that’s not the end of the world. Laurel is iconic because she shows that Blair didn’t just inherit wealth with Waldorf Designs — Laurel is living proof that Blair fully inherited access to a functioning elite network in the fashion world.

Gossip Girl producers regret it…

Since gossip girl ended, many conversations have sprung up about the lack of diversity, and the fact that Kyle girl was definitely a disappointment in this area. It was a pop culture phenomenon, but more diversity could have allowed the show to be far more beloved than it is. The creator of the show Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz along with the executive producer Joshua Saffron sat down to speak with Vulture about the shows lack of diversity, and they actually expressed their regrets over the whole thing. Joshua said, “When I look back on Gossip Girl, the only things I regret were not as much representation for people of color and gay storylines. Those are two things I think we probably could have delve into more deeply…”

You can tell that the producers of the Gossip Girl reboot really wanted to make up for the lack of diversity in the new show that premiered years later in 2021. Jordan Alexander and Whitney Peak cast in leading roles, and that casting decision felt highly intentional in my opinion. The reboot got canceled after two seasons, and I personally didn’t tune in because I saw how poorly it was being graded and reviewed by viewers on social media platforms. But I’m glad that at least made the effort and attempt to bring more diversity onto the show.