Serena is described as a statuesque,stunning,ethereal beauty; having pale,long blond hair and enchanting navy blue eyes.She is 5'7 tall.Many of the girls at Constance Billard accuse her of giving sexual favors,or her perfect beauty as the reason why everything seems to go her way.She is smart,but is often told that she is not meeting her full potential.She is the 'It Girl' of Constance Billard School for Girls and the talk of Manhattan,which make her constant fodder for the rumor mill.Her father runs the same Dutch shipping firm his great-great-grandfather created in the 1700s and her mother,Lillian van der Woodsen,is a socialite.Her parents are on the boards of all major charities and art organizations in the city and live at luxurious 994 Fifth Avenue,a ritzy,white-gloved-doorman building directly across the street from the Met and Central Park.The van der Woodsens own half the top floor,and live in a fourteen room penthouse,it has five bedrooms with three bathrooms a bar-sized living room and a staff quarters.Serena's older brother Erik,whom she is close to,is a student at Brown University.
Charles Bartholomew Bass was raised in Manhattan's most elite social circle.He is the son of wealthy businessman Bartholomew Bass and his wife Misty,and has a brother named Donald.Chuck resides with his family at the Plaza Hotel on the Upper East Side and attends school at the Riverside Preparatory School for Boys on the Upper West Side,along with scholarship student Dan Humphrey.Chuck is largely friendless,but is tolerated by the others because of his family's enormous wealth.He is described as having flamboyant fashion sense,with a penchant for scarves,and has a pet monkey named Sweetie whom he carries around with him everywhere.Lazy and vain,Chuck's only interests are sex and money,and he is frequently chided by his father for lacking ambition and performing poorly in school.He has a number of flings with numerous females and males,but his only serious relationship comes near the end of the series,when he begins dating Greg,a student who also briefly had a fling with a then-experimenting Dan Humphrey.Because of his poor grades,Chuck is rejected from every single college he applies to,and is ultimately sent to military school by his furious father.However,in the Gossip Girl spin-off The Carlyles,it is stated that Chuck never showed up to military school,and his whereabouts thereafter are unknown.