Leighton Meester’s Comeback Was The Best Thing To Happen To TV In 2025

Leighton Meester didn’t disappear from TV screens after her reign as Gossip Girl’s Queen B came to an end in 2012 — but she hasn’t had as buzzy a year until this one. In 2025, Meester was a scene-stealer in multiple hit shows, not only showing off her range in period and police dramas, but tapping into her Blair Waldorf energy once again, and even winking at her fans by playing opposite her IRL husband, Adam Brody. As anyone who’s been a Meester fan for all these years can attest, in 2025, we were so back.

To fully explain why this year was a Meester masterpiece, let’s look back at her career. Once Gossip Girl ended in 2012, the actor stepped away from television for about half a decade, shifting her focus to movies and music. She finally got her first lead role in a show again in 2017’s sitcom Making History, which was sadly under-appreciated and canceled after a handful of episodes. She found more success in 2018’s Single Parents, which ran for two seasons before ending in 2020. And then got one more brief moment as a recurring singer in 2022’s How I Met Your Father.

So, it’s not like Meester has been totally gone from the television world these past 15 years, but 2025 was undoubtedly her grand return. Even her old music got a major spike at the start of the year to usher in this Meester renaissance. But on screen, the prime example has been how I Love LA has allowed Meester to channel her Blair Waldorf energy once more, for the first time since GG.

As the kind but calculating talent manager Alyssa, Meester doesn’t go all the way into the callously Machiavellian scheming of her most famous character, but at least viewers got to see that Waldorfian sparkle shine again as Alyssa plots behind her underling Maia’s back to secure a coveted brand opportunity. Meester hadn’t really played any other conniving characters like this since Gossip Girl, which makes Alyssa feel like an old frenemy finally coming back.

“Welcome back, Blair Waldorf,” fans posted after the series premiered. “Rachel Sennott is going to heaven for putting Leighton Meester back on my TV screen,” another added.

Meester tapped into another very attention-grabbing role by taking a part on her husband’s hit show. As the maybe-too-perfect momfluencer Abby, Meester’s appearance in Season 2 of Nodoby Wants This was more than just a nudge-nudge to viewers as she and Brody indulged creating an awkward chemistry — it was also a Gossip Girl reunion for Meester and the teen show’s narrator, Kristen Bell.

It was only a one-episode cameo, but it worked on so many levels that Meester was an undeniable standout in the second season of Nobody Wants This. “Leighton is so good on Nobody Wants This her scenes with Adam are killing me,” one viewer posted. “I’ve been waiting for the Leighton Meester renaissance my whole life,” another wrote.

While these buzzy parts delivered some always-welcome nostalgia and meta humor, two other shows really put Meester’s acting range on display in 2025. On The CW’s procedural drama Good Cop/Bad Cop, Meester finally got another network lead role, proving she can thrive as a police detective in a whole new genre.

But it was her featured part in The Buccaneers Season 2 that was Meester’s true tour de force of 2025. As the mysterious aunt of main character Nan, Meester’s Nell became unexpectedly central to Season 2’s story, allowing the actor to deliver the most heartbreaking, emotional scenes of her career while looking resplendent in ornate 19th-century finery.

With four very different performances that each tap into the various reasons why Meester is the queen of TV, there’s no denying 2025 was one of the best years ever to be a fan of the superstar.