Leighton Meester, seen here with "Gossip Girl" co-star Taylor Momsen, has broken her silence regarding her alleged sex tape, telling Harper's Bazaar the footage is fake

After summer of lying low, ‘Gossip Girl’ star calls film fake

By Matthew B. Zeidman

NEW YORK (Hollywood Today) 8/5/09 – Right on the cusp of summer, Leighton Meester became as infamous as her onscreen alter ego when a blue home video allegedly featuring the “Gossip Girl” star went online. Now Meester has broken her lengthy silence, telling Harper’s Bazaar the film is an outright phony.

“[The tape] is not real, so it makes me sort of sad. It’s unfortunate that it got carried as far as it did,” the 23-year-old actress told the magazine. The footage in question, which was originally made available for sale at Celeb-hotline.com, purportedly featured Meester in a variety of sex acts with an unidentified friend.

Meester also claimed she did not believe she was 18 years old “in those pictures,” apparently disparaging estimations by mainstream media that the TV veteran was just old enough at the time to legally appear in the sex tape.

“I definitely understand the nature of people better now and that the mere allegation of something like that could be headline news,” Meester said. “People think it’s real because somebody says it is.”

The Upper East Side idol did not mention if she planned to sue Celeb-hotline.com’s anonymous owners for libel, as the Web site has insisted in print that the footage is “100% the REAL Leighton Meester.” The Web site did not immediately issue a response to Meester’s claim regarding the video’s authenticity.

Self-proclaimed “celebrity sex tape broker” Kevin Blatt, who arranged for the sale of the video and spoke to TMZ in June on behalf of the Web site, was also responsible for brokering the sale of the Paris Hilton and Verne Troyer sex tapes, which were confirmed as authentic.

Meester is best known for her portrayal of cunning queen bee Blair Waldorf, a young and wealthy Manhattan socialite, on The CW’s “Gossip Girl.” Earlier in the decade, she also appeared on a number of other television dramas, including “24,” “House” and “Veronica Mars.”