“Gossip Girl” Creator Reveals “Rebecca” Easter Egg From OG Series

Good morning, Upper East Siders, Constance Billard students and Gossip Girl fans! One of the first big Easter eggs has arrived, and we’ve got the details you need to crack the case of “Rebecca” and her identity. Spoilers abound in this short update, so read at your own risk!

If you’ve watched the new Gossip Girl on HBO Max, you know that the teachers of Constance Billard and St. Jude’s team up to resurrect Gossip Girl as a way to keep their students in line, and that this decision hinges on the input of one teacher, who shares that she graduated with the OG crew of S, B, Nate, Chuck, and Lonelyboy.

“When I was a student, we lived under constant threat. People like Nate [Archibald] were scared straight,” a character named Rebecca reveals. “It was this thing that started freshman year, called itself Gossip Girl. Kind of like an Orwellian Big Sister that kept tabs on the students it deemed important. If she knew your secrets, and she always did, she told them. She kept us all accountable. People thought it was me, but it was actually one of my classmates, Dan Humphrey.”

If this reveal had you scratching your head wondering who Rebecca was in the class of 2009 and if we’d met her before, you’re not alone. TheWrap went directly to Joshua Safran, who was a writer and producer on the original and created the reboot, for answers regarding her identity. As it turns out, we have seen her before.

“It’s such a very deep Easter egg, I assumed that nobody would know,” he explained. “Unfortunately, her full name would make you know her if you Googled it. But I couldn’t get her full name in. I tried and I just couldn’t [get the characters] to say, ‘Rebecca Sherman, you went to school here?’ But Rebecca Sherman is the name of the character at the end of Season 2 that they briefly think could be Gossip Girl before they think that it is Eric’s boyfriend.”

According to Safran, we never actually see Rebecca in the original show, but Blair does utter her name. “If you go back and watch that episode, they think it’s Rebecca Sherman,” he shared. “And Blair is like, ‘No, her head’s always in a book. She doesn’t have time to be posting all the time.’ So it was my way of doing that.” Mystery solved!

There will be more Easter eggs and even some cameo appearances from characters from the original cast popping up in the reboot, so we’d advise channeling your inner GG and keeping a very, very close eye on the halls of Constance and the elite streets of NYC. You know you love it!

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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue