Gossip Girl star Ed Westwick SLAMMED as ‘the worst’ by Russian actress as she alleges ‘weird’ on set behavior

The Gossip Girl alum, 38, and the influencer and model, 28, worked together on the 2024 thriller DarkGame, where she served as an executive producer and actress, and he starred.

Over the weekend, Pushkareva released two TikTok videos, where she discussed his alleged ‘weird’ behavior on set as well as an ‘uncomfortable’ kill scene.

She said that even though the character he played on Gossip Girl — Chuck Bass — was her ‘childhood crush’, working with the actor did not turn out to be pleasant.

Pushkareva shared she was the film’s primary investor, pouring in $350K into the project, but was snubbed by Westwick on the first day of shooting.

The actress went on to claim that he refused to rehearse their scene together and never discussed the way he would touch her cheeks during the take. 

DailyMail.com has reached out to Westwick’s representatives for comment. 

Pushkareva shared how on the first day of shooting Westwick did not even come up to her and introduce himself, and that he looked at her ‘weirdly.’

‘I don’t know, is it the fact that I was basically paying his salary and I’m a woman? It’s like an ego male moment, I don’t know. But it was just weird,’ she stated. 

‘And I’m a girly pop, so I come to him myself. I’m like “Hey, nice to meet you.” And we also had one scene together. So I’m asking him when are we planning to prepare for the scene.’

‘He says he doesn’t have to prepare because he’s a good actor,’ she claimed.

She then inserted a clip of Westwick from Gossip Girl as a reminder of his acting.

‘My assistant was next to me, and she was like, “Oh my God, I cannot believe it. This is so f*****g funny.” Because even A-list actors always prepare for every scene. That’s basically your job.’

Pushkareva said that the scene was ‘very hard’ for her as a beginner actress because he kills her in it.

She then shared a clip of the scene, stating how after Westwick took her mask off, he began to touch both her cheeks.

‘Rule of acting is that you do not touch another actor, especially if it’s kind of like uncomfortable touch, without asking them in advance and warning them.’

She went on to claim that Westwick did not want to participate in any of the promotional videos her team had planned.

‘Ed did not have any financial successful projects since Gossip Girl. And it’s literally my job to earn a s**t ton of money on social media so obviously my company was promoting this movie on social media.’

‘We prepared a huge plan for social media promotion. Over a 100 different video ideas and send it to the team of Ed. He or his team did not approve any of the video ideas.’

‘And he said “I can take a picture with her.” Thank you so much for agreeing, dear Ed Westwick, to take a picture with me, a simple Russian woman for 350K,’ Pushkareva added sarcastically. 

‘And what’s even funnier is that months later he recorded one of the ideas we sent with a Gossip Girl reference and posted it on his page.’

‘Obviously after this experience I deleted him from my crush list, and months after we were shooting the movie he was following me and unfollowing me on Instagram. It was literally a joke in my team at this point.’

‘So I clearly triggered him and neither me nor a huge team working on this movie even understood what the f**k happened.’

In her second video, she went into detail about trying to promote the film, and how despite his millions of followers, Westwick wasn’t able to get much traction for the project.

She said that her and Westwick ‘absolutely hated each other’ on set.

Pushkareva then said that she and her company created a separate account for the film, and that with her 1.2 million followers she was able to generate 12K followers.

She then claims that Ed and his team created another account for the movie, which she says was ‘weird as f**k.’

‘He had 10 million followers back then and he was posting this movie like 20 times in total and he was promising his audience that if they tag the movie account and if they tag him, he’s going to repost their stories on his account.’

She claims he only got 20 followers for the new account.

She went on to share that she made her videos more personal and showed her audience how hard it was for her to earn 350K to invest in the film, and how scary it was for her to play a dead person, saying the audience feels more ’emotionally connected’ to her. 

‘You can have millions of followers, but it won’t make you sh*t ton of money if you don’t understand how social media really works.’

DarkGame was released in December of 2024, and left Netflix fans divided.

Despite proving a hit for many thriller and horror fans, viewers have been left scratching their heads of the movie’s ‘terrible script’ and ‘awful acting.’

The film, directed by Howard Ford, stars Westwick as Detective Ben Jacobs in a race against time to save the captives of a macabre game show aired exclusively on the dark web.

The twisted game show forces kidnapped players into a brutal survival competition that’s broadcast on the dark web – content on the internet that is intentionally hidden and requires special software – as audiences place bets on their fates.

Since its release, DarkGame has been given a measly 34 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.