Parenthood alum Sarah Ramos recalls getting rejected for Gossip Girl's Jenny Humphrey role

Los Angeles Times

"You never forget your first heartbreak," Ramos recalls of losing the role to Taylor Momsen in a Los Angeles Times essay. "It was February 2007. I was 15, a high school sophomore. I’d been burned before, but not like this. This was Gossip Girl. I spent the month auditioning, again and again, to play Jenny Humphrey on the iconic show. For weeks, I was the favorite. Then I didn’t get the role. My love affair with Hollywood began in 2001, after my family paid to go on a Caribbean cruise hosted by the Olsen twins (long story). Throughout middle school, I acted on TV, attended film premieres, accepted free swag and, in my downtime, curled up with the rich, hot, traitorous Upper East Siders from the Gossip Girl books. If it were possible to overdose on materialistic teen fantasy, I’d be dead. Not getting Gossip Girl sucked in a very specific way that’s since been encapsulated in a viral tweet: 'If you live in LA long enough you’ll see someone who hurt your feelings on a billboard.' It sucked so much I wrote about it the following year, for my college admissions essay. Maybe I wanted to clarify that my value as an artist isn’t only defined by the work people end up seeing. Maybe I wanted to show off that I’d gotten so close to a shiny job. Either way, I’ve always remembered the essay as a symbol of a transitional life moment: when not getting cast in Gossip Girl inspired me to disown my former celebrity-obsessed self and take on a pretentious intellectual persona who liked only Bob Dylan (and sounded like someone badmouthing an ex they can’t admit they’re still in love with)."