NEED TO KNOW
Leighton Meester has been booked and busy — so much so that she wasn’t unaware of the latest tied to an almost two-decade-old music project of hers.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the actress and singer, 39, admits she had no idea that two songs that were originally intended for her unreleased 2009 pop album were recently released on music streaming services.
“I hate to say, but I don’t exactly know what [happened],” Meester says, referring to the August release of tracks “Body Control” and “Your Lies Are the Truth / Almost Perfect.”
“I didn’t know about that at all, but I think sometimes a contract randomly expires and then is renewed with some streaming platforms, so that kind of thing just pops up and it seems like it’s newly on there,” she continues.
“I’ve had other stuff going on. I had a show come out this year, and I was working on that, so I just hadn’t really paid attention,” adds Meester.
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Alongside various film and television roles — including one of her most iconic as Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl — Meester also released music throughout the years, such as “Somebody to Love” with Robin Thicke and “Your Love’s a Drug,” and she earned a top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with the Cobra Starship collaboration “Good Girls Go Bad.”
The mother of two then released a few country songs for the 2010 film Country Strong, in which she starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, and after a few years away from music, she returned with the more folk-laced Heartstrings album.
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In a recent interview with Bustle, Meester opened up about why she decided to stop pursuing her pop music career.
“I just didn’t feel like I sang that well in those songs,” she told the outlet about making tunes for the specific music genre. “That’s why I stopped doing that style of songwriting, because I didn’t feel really good when I would sing it. That was something that I figured out in my 20s.”
Leighton Meester
Now, with “Body Control” and “Your Lies Are the Truth / Almost Perfect” available for fans to listen to, Meester is thrilled.
“I’m really glad that people can hear it,” the star — who has partnered with Godiva for a new campaign — tells PEOPLE.
“I enjoy making music, and I want to continue doing it, hopefully sometime soon,” adds Meester. “I’ve had, I guess you could say, a day job, so sometimes that ends up being something that I don’t do as often as I’d like, but I want to continue it.”
The actress recently starred in Good Cop/Bad Cop, a television series that followed a sister and brother detective team, and she is next set to appear in season 2 of Nobody Wants This — where she will star opposite her husband, Adam Brody.
Meester’s music is available to purchase and stream. Season 2 of Nobody Wants This will premiere on Oct. 23.
