--- title: Gossip Girl Anniversary: Leonardo DiCaprio's Influence description: Apparently, during her 'Gossip Girls' days, Blake Lively would take pictures of a doll to send to then-beau Leonardo DiCaprio. canonical: https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-30T20:26:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:46:55.913Z og:title: How Leonardo DiCaprio Unexpectedly Influenced Gossip Girl og:description: While the actor was dating the show's star, Blake Lively og:url: https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt56c2cf0ccd9d1ea9/6988dbdb096a9460a169f600/leonardo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Screening of National Geographic Channel's 'Before The Flood' on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Leonardo DiCaprio Unexpectedly Influenced Gossip Girl twitter:description: While the actor was dating the show's star, Blake Lively twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt56c2cf0ccd9d1ea9/6988dbdb096a9460a169f600/leonardo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Leonardo DiCaprio Unexpectedly Influenced _Gossip Girl_ > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Aug 30, 2017 8:26 PM UTC  Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Screening of National Geographic Channel's 'Before The Flood' on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Screening of National Geographic Channel's 'Before The Flood' on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Tibrina Hobson—WireImage/Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Aug 30, 2017 8:26 PM UTC In case the 10-year anniversary of [_Gossip Girl_](http://time.com/3856125/ed-westwick-chace-crawford-abc/) has you feeling nostalgic for dishy dispatches from the Upper East Side, here’s a juicy real-life scoop about a truly spectacular time in [celebrity relationships](http://time.com/4501208/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-divorce-couple/) — a story that concerns one [Blake Lively](http://time.com/4759276/blake-lively-ryan-reynolds-john-legend/) and her former beau [Leonardo DiCaprio](http://time.com/4298225/leonardo-dicaprio-2016-time-100/). According to a [_Vanity Fair_ ](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/08/gossip-girl-ten-year-anniversary)interview with _Gossip Girl_ executive producer Jonathan Safran, the couple’s high-profile relationship in 2011 included the romantic practice of Lively taking pictures of a doll and sending the photos to DiCaprio, something Safran considers akin to a precursor to Instagram. “When I think about shooting the L.A. episodes, Blake was dating \[DiCaprio\] at the time, and she had this thing where she had a doll that she took photos of that she sent to Leo,” Safran said, noting that in this way, DiCaprio had an unexpected influence over the course of the show. “Blake was way ahead of the curve. It was pre-Instagram. She was documenting her life in photographs in a way that people were not yet doing.” In other non-doll-related news, the interview also revealed that in the most Chuck Bass-like of all moves, Ed Westwick _still_ doesn’t know who Gossip Girl is and that Nate and Eric van der Woodsen were runners-up to be the notorious blogger. In typical sad-boy fashion, Penn Badgley played true to his character and declined to be interviewed for the story. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/"},"headline":"How Leonardo DiCaprio Unexpectedly Influenced Gossip Girl","datePublished":"2017-08-30T20:26:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:46:55.913Z","description":"XOXO, Gossip Girl","url":"https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/","keywords":["Newsfeed","celebrities","viral","Leonardo DiCaprio","Blake Lively"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt56c2cf0ccd9d1ea9/6988dbdb096a9460a169f600/leonardo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt56c2cf0ccd9d1ea9/6988dbdb096a9460a169f600/leonardo-dicaprio.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Screening of National Geographic Channel's 'Before The Flood' on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.","caption":"Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Screening of National Geographic Channel's 'Before The Flood' on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.","creditText":"Tibrina Hobson—WireImage/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4921842/leonardo-dicaprio-gossip-girl/","name":"How Leonardo DiCaprio Unexpectedly Influenced Gossip Girl"}}]}] ```