Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf are two of the most famous frenemies in TV history. For six seasons of Gossip Girl, they fought over boys and Upper East Side parties, all while somehow making chunky belts look good. But while Serena and Blair were fighting on screen, there were (and still are) a bunch of rumors about the fights happening behind the scenes between Blake Lively and Leighton Meester.

Back in 2008, at the height of the Gossip Girl craze, New York Magazine did a whole feature on the cast and wrote that Blake and Leighton avoided “each other like the plague” and the rest of the cast had to “choose sides” between them. Oof. That’s enough to give me full-blown anxiety, but I guess Blake and Leighton managed it for more than half a decade while working on the show.

Now, I wasn’t there on the Gossip Girl set (as much as I wish I was), so I don’t know if those rumors are true or not. But I can track down some quotes from Blake and Leighton. They haven’t said a lot about each other over the years, but the quotes I did find are, well, shall we say, interesting. Let’s take a look at Blake Lively and Leighton Meester’s quotes about each other.

What Have Leighton Meester And Blake Lively Said About Each Other?

The Hair Color Debate

A video from a panel discussion at Paleyfest in 2008 recently resurfaced, and it included a heated little back-and-forth between Blake and Leighton about their hair color. Leighton answered a question about why her character Blair had brown hair and blonde Blake added, “Everyone knows blondes are nicer.” Was that a dig at Leighton? She might have taken it that way based on Leighton’s facial expression after.

Blake’s Weird Comment About Cages

During that same panel, Blake talked about how she didn’t want to act in roles where the characters are tortured and in cages. “Well, some of us started in a cage,” she said as she gestured to Leighton.

Blake seemed to be referencing the fact that Leighton’s mom was incarcerated when she was born. I guess Blake was trying to make a very, very dark joke about Leighton.

Blake Called Her Cast Mates Monkeys

And here’s our final quote from that ill-fated panel. Blake also talked about how in the Gossip Girl books, the character Chuck had a pet monkey, and she drew a hard line in the sand when it came to animals on set. After she said she definitely didn’t want to work with monkeys on the show, she turned to her cast mates and said, “Well, I got a few of them.”

This quote was about the whole Gossip Girl cast, not just Leighton, and Blake definitely seemed to be trying to tease them. But, still, it’s not exactly a compliment to be called a monkey.

Putting The Rumors To Bed

In one on-set interview from 2008, Blake and Leighton were asked about their rumored feud. Blake pretends to start a catfight with Leighton while Leighton tries to squash the rumors. She said, “The real life is so much better and so much more exciting to us. But like to other people, they don’t want to hear that we all get along and we all go to the set and we’re all just total dorks. They want to hear that we’re all fighting.”

And that’s about it. Blake and Leighton don’t interact much these days and don’t really talk about each other in the press. We’ll just have to wait and see if they ever get around to a long-awaited Gossip Girl reunion.