Blair Waldorf
| Blair Waldorf | |
|---|---|
| Gossip Girl character | |
| File:BlairWaldorf.jpg Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf | |
| First appearance | Pilot |
| Created by | Cecily von Ziegesar |
| Portrayed by | Leighton Meester |
| In-universe information | |
| Nickname | Blair Bear (by dad) |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Student |
| Family | Book: Harold Waldorf (father) Eleanor Rose (mother) Tyler Waldorf (brother) TV Series Harold Waldorf (father) Eleanor Waldorf (mother) |
| Relatives | Book Series: Yale Waldorf (half-sister by Eleanor & Cyrus Rose) Aaron Rose (step borther by Cyrus Rose) Cyrus Rose (step father by Eleanor) Ping and Pong Waldorf (adopted half-brothers by Harold and lover Giles) |
Blair Cornelia Waldorf, or simply known as Blair Waldorf, is a main character in the best selling Gossip Girl book series. She's portrayed by Leighton Meester in the TV series.
Book Series Background
Born Blair Cornelia Waldorf, she was born to high society on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side. Her father is Harold Waldorf, Esquire, a formerly closeted man and successful lawyer, and her mother is Eleanor Waldorf Rose, an Upper East Side hostess. She has a younger sibling named Tyler Waldorf. After her mother's marriage to Cyrus Rose, she gained a step sibling named Aaron Rose, an alternative vegan, and a half-sister, Yale Rose. After Blair's father ran off with a man to France, he and his partner, Giles, adopted Cambodian twins, Ping and Pong. Blair grew up with uber-girl Serena van der Woodsen and future boyfriend Nate Archibald. She is described to be 5'4" and slender, with brilliant blue eyes, long brunette hair (for the first four books), and a fox-like face. Her two allies, after former best friend Serena left for her Connecticut boarding school, are Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates. She cuts her long brunette hair to her ears and continues to cut it to look like her idol, Audrey Hepburn. Eventually she looks cute and foxlike.
Blair's a student at the Constance Billard School for Girls, a small, elite, all-girls school located at 93rd and Madison Avenue. She wants to attend Yale University, notably with on/off boyfriend Nate, but in the end she goes to Yale alone. Blair, before going off to college, usually lived with her mother, step father, and full and half/step siblings in a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. She also lived at The Plaza Hotel, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with Vanessa Abrams, original apartment where Breakfast at Tiffany's was shot with Serena, designer Bailey Winter's East Hampton summer home, and the Yale Club of New York City.
Overview
Starting at a dinner party at the Waldorf Penthouse for future stepfather Cyrus Rose, former best friend Serena van der Woodsen, described as the most gorgeous girl in all of New York City, returns from her boarding school Hanover Academy in New Hampshire. Blair, from the start, doesn't want to give up her spotlight as being the "most happening" girl in the room just yet. She and boyfriend Nate who have dated for about a year are in the middle of a passionate scene when Serena shows up, and entertains all the guests with stories about her wild summer adventures and what it was like to be at boarding school, shunning Blair out of the spotlight again.
Blair starts nasty rumors about Serena and turns her into a school outcast. Eventually, Blair finds out boyfriend Nate Archibald slept with Serena right after sophomore year, hence why Serena felt the need to escape to boarding school and not come back for a year before she was kicked out for returning late in the beginning of the school year. When Jenny Humphrey, a freshman with a hearty bosom steals Nate away from her on her birthday, which is also the day that her then pregnant mother marries Cyrus Rose, Serena and Blair make up once again and go back to being the best of friends, while ignoring Nate and his new girlfriend. When Blair's mom marries Cyrus Rose, she meets her new step brother, Aaron Rose (a vegan with an endless supply of herbal cigarettes), comes the day Blair has been waiting for all her life- her Yale interview.
Blair messes up her college interview at Yale by telling her interviewer about the trainwreck her life has become, and then kissing him on the cheek upon dismissal. Subsequently she is put on a waiting list into the school. Blair's father donates a multi-million dollar vineyard to Yale, but it is still not enough to clear her mistakes, and she is wait-listed at Yale. She's turned down by Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Wesleyan, and Vassar and is only accepted into Georgetown University, her safety, despite being one of the best girls in the senior class. However, Serena, a below-average student, was accepted into all of the schools that turned her down.
She is known to move out of her home frequently, first trying to live at Serena's penthouse before they left for Sun Valley, then taking a suite at The Plaza Hotel(to the chagrin of Constance Billard's headmistress), moving into Brooklyn with her shaven-haired classmate Vanessa Abrams, living with Serena at the original apartment where Breakfast at Tiffany's was shot, and moving into designer Bailey Winter's East Hampton home as a muse. She also lived in the Yale Club of New York City for a short time, where she held her high school graduation bash.
After Nate, her relationships with other men have been quite rocky. She started a brief fling with her Yale alumni interviewer, only to end it when she finds out that he was married and has a daughter also studying at Constance. She also had a thing with Serena Van der Woodsen's older brother, Erik Van der Woodsen, while they were skiing at Sun Valley for spring break. After another messy break-up with Nate, she starts a brief affair with a British lord she met at the Yale Club, however, this was ended upon learning of his relationship with his second-cousin.
Blair is eventually accepted into Yale. She and Nate go on a month-long boat trip around the world over the summer and return a week before college starts, only to discover Serena waiting. At the end of the final book, Blair and Serena kiss and make up for good, and Nate leaves them both to sail across the world with his father's Navy mentor, Captain Chips White, to figure his life out, not wanting to choose between either girl or getting in the way of their friendship again.
TV Series
Season 1
In Season 1 of Gossip Girl, Blair is introduced as the Upper East Side's "It Girl". When her best friend, Serena van der Woodsen, returns home from boarding school, the two try to stay friends, but it only lasts for a short time. Blair soon learns from her boyfriend Nate that he and Serena hooked up behind her back. Blair, infuriated, ends her friendship with Serena and the two engage in a war. However, at the end of the episode Poison Ivy, the two reconcile.
Blair and her fashion-designing mother have a rocky relationship. Blair is convinced that Eleanor enjoys Serena's company more than her own, and seems to be proven right when Eleanor chooses Serena over Blair as a model for her clothing line. Her father left her and her mother for a man, Roman, and the two live in France- but she and her father remain close.
After being fed up with Nate for not being over Serena and for being a bad boyfriend in general, Blair reaches her breaking point when she learns about Nate's father's drug problem and watches The Captain punch his son. She breaks it off with Nate and goes to Victrola, the burlesque club that Chuck Bass, Nate's best friend, has recently purchased. After being challenged by Chuck to go up and dance on stage, she loses her virginity to him in the backseat of his limo.
Blair is focused on getting back together with Nate as soon as possible, and begs Chuck to keep quiet about their affair. However, on the night of her birthday when Nate doesn't even show up to her party, Chuck tells her how he feels and gives her a necklace she wanted as a birthday present. The two begin a secret relationship, so as not to end Chuck and Nate's friendship.
When pressed with info about Blair, Chuck lies to Nate and tells him that Carter Baisen, an enemy of Nate's, is the one that Blair's secretly seeing. Nate and Carter get into a fight at Blair's debutante ball, and Blair learns that Chuck was the one who told Nate about Carter. Blair breaks it off with Chuck and reconciles with Nate.
The relationship doesn't last long. Chuck tells Blair that until seeing the two of them together doesn't make him sick, she shouldn't date him- or else he'll tell Nate about the two of them. Blair ends things with Nate, only to get back together with him later that episode when he gets suspended trying to protect her. The next episode, Chuck reports to Gossip Girl that Blair had a relationship with two men, Jenny spils the beans to Nate about Blair and Chuck and Nate soon ends his relationship with Blair and his friendship with Chuck.
Blair, made a public outcast, tries to flee for France- but Serena finds her at the airport and convinces her not to leave, saying that they can start all over together. Blair reluctantly agrees not to leave.
Differences between the novels and TV series
- In the book series, Serena told Blair she was leaving for boarding school; in the TV series, Serena left not telling Blair.
- Blair's mother is a wealthy hostess in the book, she is a designer in the TV series.
- In the TV Series Blair has brown eyes while in the book Blair is described as having blue eyes.
- Blair has a cat named Kitty Minky in the book, but in the TV series there is no evidence of a pet. It is note worthy, though, that in the TV series, Roman, her father's lover, named their cat Cat, according to "Blair's favorite movie", also alluding that 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' is Blair's favorite movie.
- Blair's mom makes very weird fashion statements, whereas in the TV series, she is a fashionable woman.
- In the TV series, Blair loses her virginity to Chuck but in the novels she loses it to Nate.
- In the book, Blair's father's male lover's name is Giles whereas in the TV series his name is Roman.
Family
Book Series
- Harold Waldorf (father)
- Eleanor Waldorf-Rose (mother)
- Tyler Waldorf (brother)
- Cyrus Rose (step father)
- Aaron Rose (step brother)
- Yale Rose (half-sister by Eleanor and Cyrus)
- Ping and Pong Waldorf (adopted half siblings by Harold and his lover Giles)
TV Series
- Harold Waldorf (father)
- Eleanor Waldorf (mother)
- Roman (father's boyfriend)
Flings and romantic relationships
Book Series
- Nate Archibald (dated/lovers)
- Owen Wells (fling)
- Lord Marcus (fling)
- Miles (fling)
- Erik Van Der Woodsen (fling)
- Serena Van Der Woodsen (fling)
TV Series
- Nate Archibald
- First Relationship:
- Start Up: Before Pilot (101)
- Broke Up: Victor, Victrola (107)
- Reason: Blair learns about Nate's dad, and is upset that he didn't talk to her about it.
- First Relationship:
- Second Relationship:
- Start Up: Hi, Society (110)
- Broke Up: School Lies (112)
- Reason: Chuck threatens to tell Nate about their relationship if she continues seeing him.
- Second Relationship:
- Third Relationship:
- Start Up: School Lies (112)
- Broke Up: The Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate (113)
- Reason: Nate learns about Blair's secret relationship with Chuck.
- Third Relationship:
- Chuck Bass
- Start Up: Seventeen Candles (108)
- Broke Up: Hi, Society (110)
- Reason: Chuck tells Nate that Blair is dating Carter, causing a scene at her debutante ball.