Free Republic

Strong performances and character development balance out the soapy sex and romance nicely, creating a thoroughly bingeable and enjoyable series.Prepare to swoon over Netflix’s new Regency romance, filled to the brim with dashing rogues, charming innocents, gorgeous costumes, and scandals galore. “Bridgerton” follows a well-tread story, where the naive virgin and the brooding bad boy pretend to be in love in order to achieve their individual goals, only for genuine interest and affection to grow from the ruse. However, with likable characters, gorgeous production design, and a mysterious writer documenting the characters’ every move in deliciously scandalous fashion, the clichéd...

HBO Max’s in-the-works Gossip Girl reboot may be set in the same universe as the CW original, but the new series will have a dramatically different (read: more diverse) worldview. In an interview with Vulture, OG Gossip Girl EP Joshua Safran — who will serve as showrunner on the follow-up — acknowledges, “There was not a lot of representation the first time around on the show. I was the only gay writer I think the entire time I was there. Even when I went to private school in New York in the ’90s, the school didn’t necessarily reflect what was...

NEW YORK – On-air promos for a sexual threesome on an upcoming episode of "Gossip Girl" have spurred the Parents Television Council to ask affiliates of the CW network to pre-empt the show. Airing the teen tryst, which is being teased in an ad as a "3SOME," is "reckless and irresponsible," said PTC president Tim Winter in a statement Wednesday. The threesome involves three main characters in the show but they are not identified in the promos. The PTC has urged CW affiliate stations not to air the episode, scheduled for Nov. 9. In a letter to the affiliates, Winter...

Leighton Meester graces the cover of Harper's Bazaar this month (on newsstands August 18) and in the interview discusses the rumored sex tape that appeared in June. The Gossip Girl star has this to say about that tape: "[The tape] is not real, so it makes me sort of sad. It's unfortunate that it got carried as far as it did."

President Barack Obama can’t stand to be without his “Entourage.” Call it a guilty pleasure, or maybe it just rings familiar to him. The HBO series about an aspiring actor features a fast-talking agent named Ari, based on the real-life brother of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. For less R-rated fare, he tunes into “Hannah Montana” or “SpongeBob SquarePants” in the White House with his daughters. Aides said he would have watched Monday night’s NCAA championship on TiVo on his way home from Iraq Tuesday night. Jon Stewart’s smackdown of CNBC’s Jim Cramer? Obama was eager to see it....

Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester attended the Christian Dior Cruise 2009 Collection last night and looked gorgeous in an emerald green Dior strapless dress.

When writer Marcia Segelstein headed to the bookstore to scout out books for her 12-year-old, she wasn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t expect rampant drinking, drug use, profanity, and explicit descriptions of sex and nudity. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what she found. Segelstein’s daughter had been clamoring to read the Gossip Girl series, which “‘all’ of her friends were reading,” she said. After seeing what was in the books, Segelstein was floored. But a school librarian confirmed, “They’re very popular among sixth and seventh graders.” Even worse, the librarian added, “Some parents are so happy that their kids...