Taylor Momsen is reflecting on her time on Gossip Girl — and why she felt like it was time to leave the hit CW series midway through the show’s fourth season.

The Pretty Reckless singer, who starred as fashion-obsessed Brooklyn teen Jenny Humphrey on Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2010, sat down with Alex Cooper on her podcast Call Her Daddy for a career-spanning interview. The episode, released on Wednesday, dove into why Momsen, a former child star who played Cindy Lou Who in 2000’s The Grinch opposite Jim Carrey, chose to exit Gossip Girl as her music career was taking off.

Momsen, who began her career modeling as a toddler, said that when she was first told about the Gossip Girl audition at age 12 — and learned that it would involve her moving to New York — she told her family and team she didn’t want to act anymore. At the time, she had just started a garage band with friends from her school.

“My agent, my manager, they all flew to my house to convince me to audition,” Momsen said, noting her parents also “encouraged this choice” as it was a “huge opportunity.” Eventually, Momsen did audition, got the part and moved to New York to work on the show.

“Gossip Girl is a weird one because, like, in one way it was, you know, it was awesome,” Momsen said. “In the other way, I really didn't want to be there.”

She said that around the same time she started Gossip Girl, she was also really getting into music — which seemed to conflict with her public persona as an actress.

“I was always writing songs. I was always doing these things behind the scenes,” she explained. “But now, to be so universally famous for something that isn't me was really challenging for me.”

Though Momsen said that everyone on Gossip Girl was “cool,” and that she remains best friends with Connor Paolo, who played Eric van der Woodsen, her heart was ultimately in music, which she called her “therapy.” She recorded the first Pretty Reckless album, 2010’s Light Me Up, while still filming the show.

“I would go to work at 4 a.m., work till 6 or whatever time we wrapped, go straight to the studio and work in the studio from whatever that time was to 2 a.m., come back, sleep for maybe an hour, and then do it all again,” Momsen said.

However, by the end of Season 3 of Gossip Girl, Momsen said she knew she couldn’t keep doing both music and the show. Though she said leaving behind her acting career was an easy decision, “to actually get out of the contract was not easy.”

“This was hard,” she said. “It started with a ‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ but you’re in a lock-and-key contract with the CW and Warner Bros., all of that stuff. It came down to — it was a very long battle with me arguing with everyone, ‘Go get me out of this. I can’t do this anymore; this is killing me. I have something else I want to do with my life, and it has nothing to do with this, and I can’t be stuck here anymore.’”

She said she was called “ungrateful,” with people telling her, “How dare you turn your back on something that’s been so successful for you?’”

Ultimately, Momsen said, the head of Warner Bros. wouldn’t let her out of her contract. That’s when she went to the show’s creators and writers, Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, who Momsen said she “genuinely loves.” While they didn’t have the power to let her out of her contract, they said they could write Jenny out of the show.

“I really have to credit them for doing that for me, because they did not have to,” she said.

Since leaving Gossip Girl in 2010, Momsen has released three more albums: Going to Hell (2014), Who You Selling For (2016) and Death by Rock and Roll (2021). This year, Momsen paid tribute to her acting roots by releasing a rock version of her song “Where Are You Christmas?” from The Grinch soundtrack.