Taylor Momsen Finally Reveals Why She Walked Away From Gossip Girl After Season 4

Taylor Momsen has finally spelled out why she peaced out of Gossip Girl after Season 4: music took over, contracts got messy, and she basically ghosted the show when the time came.

The setup

On Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, the 32-year-old looked back at her Gossip Girl run, the paparazzi circus it attracted, and the moment she decided she was done. Fun detail: she admitted she hasn't watched the series, which might explain why she initially thought she left in Season 3. Cooper had to remind her it was actually Season 4. Momsen played Jenny Humphrey through the first four seasons, for anyone who lost track once headbands gave way to smear campaigns.

When the exit really started

The music bug bit early. She says the turning point was Season 2, when she formed The Pretty Reckless. Meeting guitarist Ben Phillips and producer Kato Khandwala (who has since passed away) flipped a switch. From that point on, acting wasn't the plan anymore.

"I can't do this anymore. This is killing me. I have something else I want to do with my life and it has nothing to do with this, and I can't be stuck here anymore."

She tried to describe leaving a prosperous acting gig as not easy, then immediately corrected herself: the choice to pursue music was easy; the paperwork and politics were the hard part.

The contract wall

According to Momsen, getting out of her CW/Warner Bros. obligations involved a lot of arguments and a lot of repeating the same plea. Some people called her ungrateful for wanting off a hit show; she says she bristled at that, because nobody outside knew what she was dealing with or how certain she was about the pivot.

Here is where the behind-the-scenes help mattered: creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage couldn't free her from the contract, but they did the next best thing and wrote her out. Translation: she was still technically bound, but Jenny Humphrey largely vanished from the scripts.

The quiet goodbye

Momsen also said she didn't give her castmates a formal heads-up. In her words, she "Irish-dipped" and simply wasn't on the script the next week. It wasn't a total shock to anyone, though; everyone knew she had a band and was serious about it.

• Season 2: Forms The Pretty Reckless; meets Ben Phillips and Kato Khandwala; decides music is the priority.
• Season 3-ish: In her memory, this felt like the breaking point (she hasn't watched the show), but...
• Season 4: Confirmed exit from Gossip Girl; Schwartz and Savage write her out while the contract remains in place.

If you grew up watching her as Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas and then as Little J scheming on the Upper East Side, the shift might seem abrupt. From her telling, it wasn't a whim. It was a long, stubborn push to get to where she actually wanted to be: onstage with The Pretty Reckless, not dodging photographers on a TV set.