Leighton Meester has spoken of her admiration for younger brother Lex, who once battled a brain tumour.

The 24-year-old Gossip Girl actress makes the touching tribute to the 15-year-old in an interview with US magazine, Nylon.

Meester says: ‘He’s very talented and way funny and a lot smarter than I am, and he’s honestly the most important thing in the whole world to me.

‘I want to be like him when I grow up and I don’t know where he got it, but he’s the strongest kid in the world and I’m just amazed by him.’

Meester also has an older brother called Douglas, who has two daughters.

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In the February issue of Nylon magazine, cover girl Leighton Meester is still talking about the filming of her recently-released Country Strong movie. But this time, she is a little more honest about the influence country music had on her while she was hanging in Nashville. Tim McGraw and Gwyneth Paltrow, in fact, gave her a guitar that she is currently learning how to play. “It’s the best part of my day when I can sit down and write and it comes out in a way that’s so true for me,” she said. She also admitted that her next album will be a departure from her previous dance music. “I don’t want to release anything for the sake of making money because that’s just silliness,” she said. I wonder if McGraw gave away guitars to the whole cast, or if he just saw the potential songwriter in Meester and wanted to give her a head start.

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Gossip Girl fans, you might want to sit down for this. The show returns after its winter break tonight, and if things are as they seem, there just might be a new romantic power duo on the scene. (*Ahem!*BlairAndDan!*Ahem!*) What’s more, GG boss Stephanie Savage just told me “We absolutely have an endgame in mind for certain couples” and weighed in about Leighton Meester saying the show might end in two years …

When Gossip comes back tonight to the CW, Stephanie reveals that “a little bit of time has passed and you’ll find out what’s happened over the holidays.” You may recall, Dan and Blair were the only two left in Manhattan for the winter break, so chances are pretty darn good they ended up running into each other—further firing up speculation that Dan and Blair are becoming something of a thing.

So where do Stephanie and fellow executive producer Josh Safran stand on the great Chuck and Blair vs. Dan and Blair debate that has been raging among fans? For now, Josh can tell you that writing for the new Blair and Dan dynamic has been “very fun actually” and fans might be surprised at how much Dan and Blair click.

“We always say that Dan and Blair are probably the most academic of the characters,” Josh explains, “so they probably have more in common than people would expect…Chuck and Blair are sort of scheming. They’re devious. And the sex and all that stuff comes out of that. And Dan and Serena have a sweet, kind, good, supportive and nurturing relationship. So I think Dan brings out in Blair a side of her that maybe Chuck doesn’t. And Blair might bring out a side of Dan that Serena didn’t.”

“When you’re writing two characters that don’t like each other,” Stephanie adds, “that’s always definitely more fun than writing two characters that do like each other.”

Leighton herself tells us she’s still rooting for Chuck and Blair. “I think it’s on hold right now, but I like them together,” she just told our Cristina Gibson. “I’m a fan! I really think it’s true love and they’re really cute together but at the same time, maybe they’ve hurt each other a little bit too much and they need some separation.”

Given Gossip Girl’s ever more intricate web of romantic entanglements, you fans often ask, do the producers know how things will end up? Stephanie tells me: “There are certain couples that we absolutely have an endgame in mind for. And others, it feels like their journeys are more about exploring possibilities, and their paths are less set in stone.”

Speaking of that endgame, when will Gossip Girl end? When asked about Leighton’s recent comments that the show might not go beyond the actors’ contracted two more seasons, Stephanie says: “Right now we’re very much focused on finishing up season four, and we’re hopeful we’ll get a season-five pickup, and honestly that’s where our focus is. It feels great to know fans are panicked about the possibility of not having season seven or beyond. But for us, we’re very much focused on the here and the now and keeping the show healthy so that we could be so lucky to have that problem.” Smart cookie.

Also on tap when Gossip Girl returns tonight: A new revenge-inspired partnership between step-sibs Serena and Chuck. “They sort of team up and realize they are after the same thing in different ways,” says Josh. And Stephanie adds: “Yeah if you remember from the end of the last episode, Serena and Chuck were both really mad at Lily for separate reasons. And in the first episode when we get back, they discover there’s a way they can work together to get Lily with one stone.”

See what Dan, Blair, Serena and Chuck and the rest of the Upper East Side posse have been up to all these weeks we haven’t had Kristen Bell’s awesome voice to fill us in. And if you have anything to say about the Chuck and Blair versus Dan and Blair debate, our comments section is yours for the taking!

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Listen up, boys: Leighton Meester is on the market!

Although she looked cozy with her Country Strong costar Garrett Hedlund at the Globes afterparties, The Roommate star says she’ll probably spend Valentine’s Day with her girlfriends.

At a special screening for her new movie at Soho House, Leighton also spilled on why she believes her Gossip Girl character has found “true love” on the series, which returns tonight:

Leighton herself is rooting for Blair and Chuck to work it out.

“I think it’s on hold right now, but I like them together,” she dished on the Chuck-Blair dynamic. “I’m a fan! I really think it’s true love and they’re really cute together but at the same time, maybe they’ve hurt each other a little bit too much and they need some separation.”

Then again, Leighton also likes seeing her character being romanced by royalty.

“I also like her with a Prince or whatever. When that happened, I was like, ‘This is kind of good. She deserves it.’ Maybe I’m just talking about myself!”

Hear that, guys?

Leighton, who was looking gorgeous in a Michael Kors cutout dress, is still looking for her Prince Charming.

The only men in her life so far that make the cut?

“My brothers and my father!” she told me. “And I have a little puppy. She keeps me company.”

When February 14 rolls around, Leighton said she’ll most likely have a date—on-set, that is.

“I probably will be working. I always have champagne with my friends!” she explained.

Cheers to being single and fabulous, right?

I have more with the lovely and talented Leighton later this week, including her violent run in with the cops!

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Now this is one young Hollywood couple we back 100 percent.

“Country Strong” co-stars Leighton Meester and Garrett Hedlund presented at the Golden Globes on Jan. 16, and stuck close to each other throughout the rest of the night, reports E! Online. Rumors are now flying that the two are dating and hey, we don’t hate it!

The pair hit up the HBO Golden Globes after-party where sources say Meester and Hedlund were inseparable. “They were making googly eyes at each other all night, it was adorable,” says a source.

Another (more talkative) partygoer continues, “They were hanging out by the bar laughing and talking very close for a long time. He had his hand on her back and she was just looking up at him, smiling ear-to-ear as he was leaning down and whispering something to her.”

The eager to divulge source also squealed that that the duo “snuck a kiss” and became more affectionate at the night went on.We have to admit, we think these two would be adorable together. The original Tim Riggins (Hedlund was in the film version of “Friday Night Lights”) and “Gossip Girl’s” Blair Waldorf together? Win.

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Occasionally, Gossip Girl fans confuse actress Leighton Meester with her scheming TV character, Blair Waldorf. But the 24-year-old is far from privileged, and not nearly as self-entitled.

A determined Meester says she has worked for everything she’s received, and she’s proud of her extra effort.
That’s why shooting her TV series in New York while filming the movie Country Strong in Nashville didn’t seem like a mission impossible.

Besides, Meester couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play a character so completely different from her television persona.
In the Shana Feste-directed Country Strong, she plays Chiles Stanton, a former Texas beauty queen trying to make a name for herself as a singer in Nashville. When the up-and-comer joins the comeback tour of rehabbing country star Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow), things get testy.

Complications develop when Chiles finds herself in the middle of dysfunctional relationships among a relapsing Canter, Canter’s husband-manager James (Tim McGraw) and Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund), a promising young singer-songwriter.

Read More . . .

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester has appeared in a new campaign for Italian fashion house Missoni.

Meester, 24, who plays the role of Blair Waldorf in the series, appeared carefree and natural in barely-there make-up as she rode a carousel horse in Missoni’s trademark prints, the Daily Mail reported.

Photographer Juergen Teller took the photos, which are said to have been inspired by the cover of Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Meester is also currently appearing in campaigns for Vera Wang fragrances and Herbal Essences. (ANI)

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Leighton Meester has revealed that she is a casual kind of girl at heart.

Despite her glamorous image in Gossip Girl, the 24-year-old actress said that when left to her own devices, she would rather feel ‘comfortable’ in her clothes.

She told People, ‘I like to be comfortable 90 per cent of the time and when it’s time to dress up, I go all-out.

‘My inspiration is life. It comes from my family, my friends, travelling.’

Listing her passions in life, she included, ‘Books, music… Love inspires me, and relationships, sex. You know? Food, fashion!’

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