Blair Waldorf

Blair Waldorf
Blair Waldorf
Gossip Girl character
First appearance	Book Series: ; Gossip Girl ; TV Series: ; Pilot
Last appearance	Book Series: ; Don't You Forget About Me
Created by	Cecily von Ziegesar
Portrayed by	Leighton Meester
In-universe information
Alias	B
Nickname	Blair Bear (by dad) ; TV Series: ; B
Gender	Female
Occupation	Book Series: ; College Student ; TV Series: ; High School Student
Family	Book Series: ; Harold Waldorf (father) ; Giles (father's boyfriend) ; Eleanor Rose (mother) ; Cyrus Rose (step-father) ; Tyler Waldorf-Rose (brother) ; Aaron Rose (stepbrother) ; Yale Rose (half-sister) ; Ping Waldorf (adoptive half-brother) ; Pong Waldorf (adoptive half-sister) ; TV Series ; Harold Waldorf (father) ; Roman (father's boyfriend) ; Eleanor Waldorf (mother)
Spouse	Book Series: ; Nate Archibald (lovers/dated) ; Miles (fling) ; Owen Wells (fling) ; Erik van der Woodsen (fling) ; Lord Marcus Beaton-Rhodes (dated) ; Jason (fling) ; TV Series: ; Nate Archibald (dated) ; Chuck Bass (lovers/ dating)
Relatives	Book Series: ; Catherine (maternal aunt) ; Bruce (maternal uncle) ; Zo Zo (maternal aunt); Fran (maternal aunt) ; Becky (cousin) ; Peter (cousin) ; Willie (cousin)

Blair Cornelia Waldorf is a main character in the best selling Gossip Girl book series. She is portrayed by Leighton Meester in the TV series.

Book Series Background

Blair Cornelia Waldorf, born November 17, 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.

Blair's a student at the Constance Billard School for Girls, a small, elite, all-girls school located at 93rd and Madison Avenue, and suffered from bulimia. 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, the 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 Hanover, 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 and an unrequited crush on Blair), 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. 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 these schools.

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 Background

Wealthy and snobby, yet lovable, Blair Waldorf is the daughter of high-end fashion designer Eleanor Waldorf and Harold Waldorf. Mr. Waldorf left Mrs. Waldorf for a man named Roman, and ran off to Paris. Blair is known for her Queen Bee status at the exclusive Contance Billard School for girls. Blair's friends joke that she has dated on/off again boyfriend Nate Archibald "sincekindergarten."

Season 1

In Season 1 of Gossip Girl, Blair is introduced as the Upper East Side "It Girl". When her best friend, Serena van der Woodsen, returns home from boarding school, the two try to reconcile their friendship. Blair soon learns from her boyfriend, Nate, that he and Serena slept together behind her back. Blair, infuriated, ends her friendship with Serena. However, at the end of the episode Poison Ivy, the two reconcile. Nate continually seeks out Serena, and in the process breaks Blair's heart on numerous occasions; but Blair, hanging onto him, manages to keep their relationship together until Victor/Victrola.

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 more convinced of this 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. She is close to her father, and is trying to have a closer relationship to her mother. It is also reveal that she has an eating disorder that she has overcome, but sometimes relapse back into when extremely distressed.

Fed up with Nate's attraction to Serena, Blair reaches her breaking point when Nate can't seem to reciprocate her love. She breaks it off with Nate and goes to Victrola, the burlesque club that Chuck Bass has recently purchased. After being challenged by Chuck to dance on stage, in the spirit of the moment she loses her virginity to him.

Blair is focused on getting back together with Nate as soon as possible, and warns Chuck to keep quiet about their affair. However, on the night of her birthday when Nate fails to make an appearance at her party, Chuck confesses his feelings for her. He gives her a necklace as a birthday present, that she had hope Nate would get for her, and the two begin a secret affair.

At the Constance Billard's debutante ball she ends up reconciling with Nate, when she starts distancing herself from him, and in a fit of jealousy gets into a fight over her. Chuck, out of fear of losing Blair to Nate, attempts to manipulate events in his favor; only it back-fires on him, because it brings the two together again. Chuck sees Blair and Nate kissing, and going into a room, and he leaves NYC miserable.

Chuck, driven by jealousy, tries to threaten Blair that he'll tell Nate about the two of them. Blair ends things with Nate, so that there would be no reason for Chuck to tell him. Nate, thinking that Blair is the one who broke into the school for a pool party, takes the blame because he thinks he's protecting her, and faces expulsion. When Blair asks him why he would do something so stupid, he tells her because he loves her, and they reconcile with each other. The next episode, Chuck reports to Gossip Girl that Blair had sex with two men in one week. Jenny confirms this to Nate when he asks her about it, because she's tired of Blair's attitude towards her, Nate gets into a fight with Chuck, and he ends his relationships with Chuck and Blair.

Blair, now a public outcast, tries to flee for France - but Serena finds her at a dock for her private plane and convinces her not to leave, saying that they can start over together.

Back from spring break, Blair has become a social outcast. She was completely ostracized by the students, Jenny Humphrey and her former "friends" even drops yogurt in her hair, as a malicious joke erupting the whole school into laughter and everyone sneers at Blair. On Serena's advice, she tries to move forward, and put the whole event behind her. When a dinner date is set for her and the group, they stand her up, and instead are at the home of one of the other girls. Blair then decides to enact her revenge on Jenny, and reclaim her throne as the "Queen Bee". She ultimately succeeds in embarrassing Jenny on her birthday, by inviting the group to Jenny's home for a "party", so that they can see she does not have monetary wealth, but is even more thrill as Jenny exposes herself as a thief by stealing one of the girls' mother's custom-made Valentino dress. Blair's victory was short-lived as Jenny brings Nate to the group's dinner party that Blair is hosting, and all is forgiven with the other girls because they all crush on Nate. This moment has made Blair an outcast once again, and has erupted a full fledged war between Blair and Jenny.

A week later, Blair wanted to make sure Nelly Yuki(the smartest girl in her class) cannot concentrate to her SAT studies. She planned a SAT study group with the IT girls from Constance making sure Jenny isn't a part of it. She makes sure that Nelly Yuki and her ex-boyfriend(who broke up with Nelly in a Flo Rida concert)gets back together, and then break up the night before the SAT, so that she won't be able to concentrate.

A week later, Blair and Jenny sends fake rumors to Gossip Girl. Blair, by sheer misfortune on Jenny's part, regains her throne by revealing that Jenny's "boyfriend" is gay, and just using her as a cover-up, but even more devastating to Jenny is that she lied about having sex with him, which is exposed, and the girls in the group quickly cut their ties with her, and goes back to being Blair's Clique. Blair has won.

That very same night, Serena van der Woodsen came to Blair's house, desperate and in tears. After Blair tells Serena that there is nothing that she could do to make Blair let go of their friendship, Serena confides in Blair her dark secret: she killed someone. Blair is dumbstruck. When she goes upstairs to get something, Serena sneaks out of her apartment and spends the night drinking in a bar. Blair immediately chases after her friend, and even though it takes her all night, she eventually finds Serena and brings her back to the apartment.

Blair then enlists the help of her ex-boyfriend, Nate Archibald (Gossip Girl), and her ex-lover Chuck Bass, to help her with Serena, making for a very uncomfortable atmosphere in Blair's apartment, made even worse when Serena's boyfriend, Dan Humphrey shows up looking for her. Nate, Chuck and Blair all lie to him, saying that Serena does not want to see him. Dan refuses to leave, and Serena eventually comes downstairs to confront him. When Dan asks her if she cheated on him, she replies, "Yes." Dan then says, "I'm done", ending their relationship and leaving Blair's apartment, heartbroken. When Blair asks her if she really cheated on Dan, Serena says no, but that she would rather have him believe that then know the real truth, because she thinks that Dan would never look at her again. Blair reminds her that they are all best friends, and convinces Serena to tell Blair, Nate and Chuck the truth about what happened the night that she claims she killed someone.

To get Serena to speak, Blair starts about how they can tell each other anything. She states, "I had sex with him (Chuck) in the back of a limo." "Several times," Chuck adds. Then Nate confesses by saying, "I had sex with you (Serena) at a wedding while I was your (Blair) date." He glares at Chuck before going, "Once." They turn to Chuck who simply says, "I'm Chuck Bass."

Later that night at Lily van der Woodsen's rehearsal dinner, Serena tells Blair that her mother found the tape, and that she was shipping her off to reformatory school. Blair immediately takes action, cornering Lily and telling her that Serena has been harboring a dark secret, is in a lot of pain, and needs her mother. Lily and Serena then reconcile. Blair suggests to Chuck that they personally go after Serena's tormentor, Georgina Sparks, to which Chuck replies, "Let's get the bitch."

Blair and Chuck then pick up Nate, and they all head to Rufus's Rolling Stone Concert. To Blair and Chuck's dismay, Georgina is nowhere to be seen, for she has already left the concert with Dan. Blair, however, convinces Dan to plot against Georgina with her, and together they get her sent away to boarding school. At the Bass/van der Woodsen wedding, she and Chuck reconcile when Chuck anounces in his speech that, "in the face of true love, you never give up- even when the object of your affection is begging you to." The two share a kiss after he apoligizes for his previous cruel words.

Differences between the novels and TV series

Blair's mother is a wealthy hostess in the book, she is a designer in the TV series.
In the book Blair has blue eyes while in the TV series, Blair has brown eyes.
Blair has a cat named Kitty Minky in the book, in the TV series, Blair has a nightmare of looking for Kitty then Nate tells her she isn't Blair. 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 dresses very strangely in the books, 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 books, Blair's father's male lover's name is Giles whereas in the TV series his name is Roman.
Blair's favorite store in the books is Barney's New York, whereas in the TV series she wears mostly her mother's clothing.
In the book Eleanor Waldorf is dating Cyrus Rose in the TV series Cyrus Rose isn't mentioned.

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)
Serena van der Woodsen (fling)
Miles (fling)
Owen Wells (fling)
Erik van der Woodsen (fling)
Lord Marcus Beaton-Rhodes (dated)
Jason (fling)

TV Series

Nate Archibald
- First Relationship:
  - Start Up: Before Pilot (101) (They are said to have been dating since kindergarten.)
  - Broke Up: Victor, Victrola (107)
    - Reason: Blair doesn't feel as if Nate has strong feelings for her anymore, and he refuses to confide in her about his dad's drug problem and abuse.
- Second Relationship:
  - Start Up: Hi Society (110)
  - Broke Up: School Lies (112)
    - Reason: Chuck tells Blair that if she has any contact with Nate, he's going to tell him about their 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.
Chuck Bass
- First Relationship:
  - Start Up: Victor, Victrola (107)
  - Broke Up: Hi Society (110)
    - Reason: Blair learns that Chuck lied to Nate, causing a scene at her debutante ball.
- Second Relationship:
  - Start Up: Much 'I Do' About Nothing (118)