The following article contains discussion of themes including incest that some readers may find disturbing.
Gossip Girl season two spoilers follow.
Gossip Girl reboot star Eli Brown has responded to a twist involving incest in the second season.
The HBO Max series upended a lot of expectations in its latest episode when it finally got to the bottom of Grace Byron's cheating.
The show had already let viewers in on the fact that Grace (Master's Anna van Patten) was having an affair, but Obie (former Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists star Eli Brown) had no idea she was cheating with her own twin brother Jake.
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"I did not see it coming at all,” Eli Brown admitted to TVLine. “Our wonderful showrunner warned me a few episodes in advance – even before we started shooting season 2, actually – but I thought he was just taking a piss.
"I thought he was joking, but he was like, ‘No, I’m not joking.’ Then I read it in the script and I was shocked."
He added: "Incest in and of itself is gnarly but to find out that your girlfriend is f**king her brother? That’s a lot."
Producer Joshua Safran has confirmed that the revelation of Grace and Jake's incest was a way to write them out of the show so Obie could deal with the consequences.
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"That is the last you see of them,” Safran explained. “This story was meant to launch Obie in a new way. [In Grace], he thinks he’s found the thing that’s going to make his family love him, and then he finds out that thing is just as screwed up as anything he’s ever done.
"Therefore, there is no way he can get his family to love him – so he might as well destroy them.”
Gossip Girl airs on HBO Max in the US, and broadcasts on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
Justin is a freelance entertainment journalist and writer. He first joined Digital Spy as a freelance entertainment reporter in 2010 and also worked as a sub-editor for the brand, serving as Night News Editor from 2016 to 2024. Over more than a decade, Justin has covered numerous major entertainment events from the US and has interviewed a wide-ranging group of public figures, from comedian Steve Coogan to icons from the Star Trek universe, cast members from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reality stars from numerous Real Housewives cities and the Below Deck franchise. Justin has also been on the ground to cover major pop culture events like the Star Wars Celebration and the D23 Expo. He's written for titles across the Hearst network, plus the likes of CBR and Us Weekly.
