It was hard to miss the buzz surrounding the scandalous Gossip Girl when it debuted in 2007, and the books the television series is based on weren’t any tamer.

In mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do? interview, the series’ creator Cecily von Ziegesar explained how she came up with the inspiration for those elite Upper East Side teenagers.

“I always start with something that’s real, an actual occurrence or somebody that I really know. Then, I change it so much that it’s not that anymore. But that’s always a kind of germ of where the person comes from,” she said. “I had a friend who was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn and, so, Blair is obsessed with Audrey Hepburn. But I just borrowed that characteristic from a friend. The rest of Blair’s characteristics have nothing to do with that friend.”

Click here for the full interview.