Whatever happened to Taylor Momsen, the memorable Jenny from ‘Gossip Girl’?

There are rising stars that sometimes get lost in the way and are never seen again by the audience. Some of them are nowhere to be seen, but others come back to the Star System or redirect their careers. That’s the case of Taylor Momsen (Saint Louis, 1993), one of the protagonists of ‘Gossip Girl’.

Taylor Momsen starred in movies like ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, ‘Hansel & Gretel’ or ‘Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams’, although her most memorable role was the one of Jenny Humphrey in the iconic series ‘Gossip Girl’.

As a whiz-kid, she started acting at 3 years old, but also worked as a model and a singer. In fact, she was almost casted as Hannah Montana, a role which eventually will make Miley Cyrus world-famous.

Her big moment came with the acclaimed ‘Gossip Girl’, a series based on the Cecily Von Ziegesar’s books which tells the stories of a group of New York rich teenagers.

She was the sister of Penn Badgley’s character, Dan, and she was part of the main cast of the series.

The show had six seasons and we were able to see Taylor until the fourth one, then her character started to lose importance and, finally, disappeared (although she reappeared for the last episode of the series).

When the actress abandoned the series in the fourth season, she decided to focus on the music world and created the band ‘The Pretty Reckless’.

There were some speculations about the reasons of Momsen exiting the series. Among them: her allegedly bad relationship with Leighton Meester (who played Blair Waldorf). Meester was one of the members of the main cast who also started a music band.

Media reported at the time that Taylor Momsen would not have been happy with how in ‘Gossip Girl’ Leighton Meester’s music project was more appreciated than hers. In fact, two of her co-star’s songs were used in the show.

She was also alleged to behave badly on set and have a diva attitude.

Tim Gunn once commented in an interview to 'E!' that Taylor Momsen "was pathetic" and that she couldn’t remember her lines.

What most of the audience didn’t know, though, was that her time at 'Gossip Girl' was one of the darkest times in Taylor’s life.

According to an interview to ‘Metro UK’, the loss of her friend, Chris, pushed Taylor into depression. And right when she was starting to get better, the accidental death of her best friend, Kato, sent her into a spiral of self-destruction.

She confessed: "I felt that my life was over and fell deep down into a very dark hole of depression and substance abuse; I was a mess."

It was music that saved her. In 2019 she picked up the band again - ‘The Pretty Reckless’ - and started making new songs.

In February of 2021, the band released ‘Death by Rock and Roll’, their fourth studio album.

The album was well received by critics and sold 16,000 copies in de week of its release. It was one of the band's best-selling albums.

And after four years they were back again on stage to give several concerts in New York. Taylor excitedly announced them to her fans in October of 2021.

As Taylor shared in her Instagram account: "THE BEGINNING! For our first shows in almost FOUR YEARS we are going back to where it all started…NEW YORK!!! We are playing a few intimate warmup shows at the brand new venue Brooklyn Made in March, tickets on sale FRIDAY! I can’t believe it’s actually happening! #deathbyrockandrolltour2022."

Taylor Momsen is back. At least to the music world. Whether or not she returns to acting... well, that's something we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we'll always have her as Jenny Humphrey and, of course, as the little and loving Cindy Lou Who in Jim Carrey’s ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’.