Jessica Szohr played Vanessa Abrams on The CW’s original “Gossip Girl”, one of the show’s most polarizing characters, and now the actress is returning to host a new podcast looking back at the show, “XOXO with Jessica Szohr”.
In a new interview with Teen Vogue to promote the new podcast, Szohr opens up about playing a character that fans sometimes loved to hate.
READ MORE: Penn Badgley Talks ‘Twisted’ Storylines In ‘Gossip Girl’, Admits Dan Humphrey Was ‘Villainous’
However, she also admitted she wasn’t always thrilled with some of the antics the show’s writers cooked up for Vanessa. “I feel like [Vanessa] definitely got the short end of the stick,” Szohr said.
“Vanessa was funny to me because there were so many parts of her that I really liked,” she added. “There were other parts where I would think ‘Why is she on the Upper East Side again?’ When she hooked up with Chuck, I was thinking, ‘Why hook up with Chuck? Why is Chuck hooking up with her?'”
Ultimately, Szohr came to realize the backlash her character received was both deserved and intentional. “Some of the stuff that was written [in the show] was cringe-worthy and was annoying,” she explained. “So if I annoyed you and you cringed at Vanessa, then I was doing my job, because some of the stuff was that way,” Jessica said.
READ MORE: Ed Westwick Reprises ‘Gossip Girl’ Character Chuck Bass In First TikTok Video
As for negative feedback from fans, Szohr said it didn’t concern her — because she tried to avoid them.
“I don’t really look at comments and read those type of things just because when the show hit, there were so many opinions,” she explained. “I didn’t read a bunch of comments because if people are being harsh or weird, I’m not going to spend my time looking at that. For me, not worth my time. I was bringing her to life the best that I could with what was written, and if you didn’t like it, then I think I was doing my job.”
