Kristen Bell Returns As The ‘Gossip Girl’ Narrator In HBO Max’s Mysterious New Teaser

HBO Max has dropped the first official teaser for its new Gossip Girl series, and fans of the original will be very happy to hear a familiar voice. Dropping her trademark “XOXO”s, Kristen Bell returns to narrate the seemingly glamorous life of the show’s stars, who all seem to be hiding mysterious motives as whispers are shared and suspicious glances are shot across the room.

According to HBO Max, the series is not a reboot, but instead, will jump forward in time as it focuses on a new cast, which will have to contend with a new “Gossip Girl” that now has all of social media as their playground. The events of the previous series will still be in play, and fans will have to wait and see how they tie into the new show.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Developed by showrunner Joshua Safran, a writer and executive producer on the original series, this extension of the pop culture classic takes us back to the Upper East Side finding a new generation of New York private school teens being introduced to social surveillance nine years after the original blogger’s website went dark. The series is based on the bestselling novels by Cecily von Ziegesar and the original show, developed by Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage, which ran from 2007-2012 on The CW.

Starring Jordan Alexander, Eli Brown, Thomas Doherty, Tavi Gevinson, Emily Alyn Lind, Evan Mock, Zion Moreno, Whitney Peak and Savannah Lee Smith, the all-new Gossip Girl starts streaming Thursday, July 8 on HBO Max.