What Happened To Ed Westwick After Gossip Girl?

Blake Lively has starred in some of your favorite thrillers (A Simple Favor, anyone?) and is constantly cracking social media jokes with her husband, Ryan Reynolds. Leighton Meester and Adam Brody recently welcomed their second child together. Penn Badgley is playing creepy (but sort of charming?) serial killer Joe Goldberg on Netflix's You. And Chace Crawford is currently starring in Amazon's The Boys. But amid all of the news about the Gossip Girl cast, there's one more star you might be wondering about. What happened to Ed Westwick after Gossip Girl?

As with his GG costars, Westwick's role on the CW series will probably be the one for which he's always known. (If you saw him walking down the street, admit it — you'd make a "Spotted: Chuck Bass" joke in your head.) But he's gone on to star in a number of other projects since the series ended in 2012.

However, Westwick's legacy also includes rape allegations from four women. He's denied the claims, but they're worth remembering when discussing the actor. Here's what fans should know about Ed Westwick's post-Gossip Girl life.

While fans are eagerly awaiting news about the Gossip Girl reboot, the entertainment industry has taken a backseat during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. And as social justice issues like the Black Lives Matter movement have come to the forefront, celebrities are taking up the social justice mantle, too.

Ed Westwick joined in the fight against racism this summer, posting a vague "XOXO" tweet in June 2020. He wasn't teasing that he'd be part of the reboot, though — he was promoting a Represent face mask (which, yes, reads "XOXO"). Proceeds from the face mask sales went to Kick It Out, a charity that works to end racism in soccer in the UK.

"While a GG reboot would be a great distraction, this is not the time for distractions. It is important we focus on the issues at hand, and do what we can to help, even if we think it's something small," Westwick tweeted after facing backlash for using the "XOXO" tagline.

Set in 1980s Essex, White Gold aired for two seasons, with 12 episodes total, from 2017 to 2019. (Tahani's Good Place joke about short seasons on BBC series doesn't seem too far off!) Ed Westwick played Vincent Swan, a window salesman for a company called Cachet Windows. Surprised by the fact that Westwick went from the CW to the BBC? Don't be — he's British! To hear a snippet of his real accent, check out this White Gold clip.

Before White Gold, Westwick played a serial killer in the short-lived ABC drama Wicked City. It only ran for eight episodes in 2015. Ironically, the other drama featuring a Gossip Girl leading man as a serial killer — You starring Penn Badgley — went on to be a massive hit.

Westwick was also slated to appear in an Agatha Christie adaptation, Ordeal by Innocence, on the BBC in 2018, but he was replaced following rape allegations against him.

In November 2017, Ladies Like Us actor Kristina Cohen accused Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick of rape. Cohen alleged in a Facebook post that while she was taking a nap at Westwick's home, he assaulted her. "I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body. I told him to stop, but he was strong. I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to f**k me. I was paralyzed, terrified," Cohen wrote in her Facebook post. "I couldn't speak, I could no longer move. He held me down and raped me."

Westwick denied Cohen's accusations, writing in a since-deleted Twitter post (via Us Weekly), "I do not know this woman. I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape."

After Cohen's Facebook post, two additional women, Rachel Eck and Aurélie Wynn, also accused Westwick of sexual assault. And a fourth woman, Haley Freedman, accused Westwick of assault in March 2018. As Us Weekly reported in 2018, Westwick didn't face rape charges, due to "insufficient evidence" in the three cases.