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Ivy Dickens


Ivy Dickens (former alias: Charlotte "Charlie" Rhodes) is a character introduced in the fourth season of Gossip Girl. Appearing exclusively in the television adaption, she is portrayed by actress Kaylee DeFer.

Starting in season five and continuing in season six, Kaylee DeFer was upgraded to the main cast. Ivy appeared in 30 episodes.

Summary[]

Ivy was hired by Carol Rhodes to pretend to be her daughter, Charlie Rhodes, and gain access to her trust fund. As Ivy came from a broken home and poor family, she found comfort and glamour in the lifestyle of the Upper East Side and the van der Woodsen/Rhodes family.

After the death of CeCe Rhodes and the revelation of who she really is, Ivy has left the entire Rhodes estate. This newfound wealth does not last, as Lily van der Woodsen and Carol successfully cheat Ivy out of her inheritance and split it among themselves. In the season five final episode, the real Charlotte Rhodes signs over her share of the inheritance to Ivy, who then promises to do everything in her power to bring down Lily and the van der Woodsen's.

In the sixth and final season, Ivy is seen dating Rufus Humphrey and later William van der Woodsen in an attempt to undermine Lily, which ultimately fails. After William leaves Ivy, she writes an autobiography detailing her life masquerading on the Upper East Side titled Ivy League.

Novel Series[]

Ivy is not a character in the novel series of Gossip Girl.

Background[]

Besides the fact that she was born and raised in a trailer park in Miami, Florida, not much is known about Ivy's past. It is revealed that her father died due to a heroin overdose when she was eight years old right in front of her, and then her grandmother died of cancer.

Television Series[]

Season Four[]

Ivy, or rather "Charlie Rhodes," first appears in The Kids Stay in the Picture during the media circus surrounding Lily's impending sentencing. She introduces herself to Serena and the two go shopping. They have a nice time until Carol catches her in the city and is shocked to find her there. Serena discovers CeCe paid Carol to come and gives her money every month. She tells Charlie, who spends the night with Serena and Blair to avoid her mother. The next day, she tells Carol that she wants to stay in the city to get to know the family.

Ivy and Serena

She moves into Serena's old room at the van der Woodsen penthouse. Meanwhile, Serena hears that Dan and Blair kissed and enlists Charlie to find out if they're secretly dating (Petty in Pink). While in the city, she hangs out pretty exclusively with Serena, Eric, and Dan. She develops feelings for Dan, and begins to scheme ways to make him hers. In The Princesses and the Frog, she pretends to be conned by Vanessa Abrams to appear as a damsel in distress, thus gaining Dan's attention and taking Vanessa out of the equation for good. Soon after, Dan invites her to go with him a Constance/St. Jude's alumni gala. She accepts, and after seeing a photo of him at Cotillion with Serena, she steals the dress she wore and accessorizes herself to match it. During this time, she has also "forgotten" to take her medication. At the gala, she tries to seduce Dan in Headmistress Queller's office but freaks him out when she asks him to call her Serena. While suffering an apparent psychotic break, she attempts to jump out the windo, but is stopped by Serena. While leaving, Charlie runs into Georgina Sparks, who recognizes that she is faking her illness and offers her phone number, telling her to call if she ever wants to have fun. Upon returning to Miami, she meets with Carol, giving her the checks to the trust fund that she successfully gained access to. With Carol thanking her for a job well done and paying her handsomely, Ivy takes out Georgina's phone number.

Season Five[]

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Ivy, masquerading as "Charlie Rhodes," with Serena.

In premiere Yes, Then Zero, it is revealed that after returning to Miami, Ivy moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, Max, in order to become an actress. She later runs into Serena at the restaurant she and Max both work at, with Serena still believing her to be Charlie. She offers to have Ivy move in with her. Ivy declines, looking for several ways to get out of the situation, but Serena eventually convinces her to move back to New York with her (Beauty and the Feast).

Once she returns to Manhattan in The Jewel of Denial, Lily refuses to deceive her sister and says she is going to tell Carol where Charlie is. Charlie tells Serena that she plans to leave the city. Serena, who figured something like this would happen, proceeds to ask her to return her tickets to the Jenny Packham fashion show. When she arrives, she discovers that Serena had actually arranged for her to take her place as a model in the fashion show. After a conversation with Blair, she decides to stay after all, though her excitement doesn't last as she runs into Carol, who had no idea that she had returned. After a confrontation with Carol, Ivy states that the family that Carol hates has been kinder to her than her own and that everything in New York sparkles. She refuses to give that up and that the van der Woodsens would have a problem should it ever come out that Carol had hired her to impersonate Charlie in order to gain access to her trust fund. After this conversation, Carol tells Ivy that while she may stay in New York, she is on her own before returning to Miami herself.

Later, Ivy panics when she learns that she has left her cell phone at the fashion show, as she believes her true identity will be discovered. She is unaware, however, that her phone, along with several others, has been stolen by Nate Archibald and his boss, Diana Payne. After a conversation with Nate about the phone, she offers to help him find the owner in attempt to retrieve it. After she has accomplished this, however, Diana has discovered the connection between Ivy and Charlie and agrees to keep silent as long as Ivy works for her (Memoirs of an Invisible Dan). Under Diana's control, Ivy is forced to procure gossip for Diana's use. Ivy later discovers the files that Bart Bass kept on Serena, Lily, Eric and himself; while Nate convinces her to leave them, she decides to turn them over to Diana (The Fasting and the Furious).

In an attempt to get inside information on Blair's upcoming wedding to Louis Grimaldi, she competes against Penelope Shafai and others to become a member of the bridal party. She later attends the launch party of the revamped New York Spectator with Nate, where they use each other to reach their own ends: Charlie to win Blair's bridesmaid spot and Nate to make Diana jealous, though their motives are unknown to the other. An angry Diana later confronts Ivy about the kiss and threatens to reveal her secret, though Ivy is adamant that she had no idea that she was the one Nate wanted to make jealous. To create a wedge between the two, Diana later reveals to both her and Nate that they had been deceiving each other, leaving them angry at one another (I Am Number Nine).

Although Ivy has developed feelings for Nate, Diana has threatened to reveal her most dangerous secret. This changes, however, when she finds out that Ivy's ex-boyfriend, Max, is in town looking for her and sets up an elaborate plot that very nearly causes her secret to be revealed (The Big Sleep No More). Max finds Gossip Girl's website, along with a picture of Ivy under "Charlie Rhodes." He tracks Ivy down to the van der Woodsen penthouse, backing Ivy into a corner where she tells Lily and Max that her mother made her change her name to Ivy in order to avoid being used for her money. While discussing this later, Ivy offers Max money to leave town and start his restaurant in Portland, Oregon. However, when he discovers out that Ivy is actually impersonating Charlie Rhodes, he blackmails Ivy into giving him more money than she had originally offered before deciding to stay in town (All the Pretty Sources). When Carol and CeCe return to Manhattan, Carol tries to help Ivy with Max by getting CeCe to unlock the rest of Charlie's trust fund, which she does. After Ivy convinces Serena to drop her date with Max on Carol's advice, Max shows up to the party and attempts to out her as Ivy to the rest of the Rhodes/van der Woodsen family. It is Carol, however, who convinces the family that Max is the one lying, later telling Ivy that if the family found out what has happened to the real Charlie Rhodes, Ivy wouldn't be the only one out. Carol tells Ivy that she may now leave New York and start a new life with the wealth she now possesses. Ivy, however, tells her that she doesn't care about the wealth and luxury of being a Rhodes, and that Carol can have the trust fun, since all she really wants is a family to call her own (Rhodes to Perdition).

After his failed attempt to expose Ivy, Max continues to threaten Ivy's new life, taking her story to Nate, who has already been warned about him by the van der Woodsens. When this fails, Max takes his story to Nate's cousin, Congressman Tripp van der Bilt, on the eve of her debut into Manhattan society. When Max shows up to her party, she sends a blast to Gossip Girl about Chuck and Blair being there as well, sending the paparazzi into the party as well. When Chuck and Blair get into a life-threatening car accident after being tailed by the paparazzi, Ivy confesses to Rufus that she is a fraud. Before he can respond, Lily comes rushing out with news that Blair is awake and responding, though Chuck is unresponsive. Overwhelmed with guilt, Ivy calls Carol and asks her to help her leave the Upper East Side for good (Riding in Town Cars With Boys).

A few weeks later, concerned by Charlie's long absence, Lily hires a private investigator to find her, but the private investigator instead finds the real Charlie Rhodes, who is attending Julliard. When Lily and the real Charlie meet, they do not recognize each other, nor do they seem to be aware of each other's existence (The End of the Affair?). In Crazy Cupid Love, Ivy returns briefly to look for Lily, though she finds Rufus instead, who tells her where Lily can be found. Georgina discovers that Ivy is back and blackmails her into attending Nate's party. While at Nate's party, Ivy runs into the Lola, the real Charlie Rhodes, and it is revealed that they took the same acting class. Ivy attempts to leave again, but is spotted by Nate. Still unaware of Ivy and Lola's true identities, Nate makes a comment to Lola about "Charlie," leading Lola to get suspicious. When Ivy can finally leave, it's revealed that she has been visiting CeCe the whole time she was away.

CeCe's condition worsens in Cross Rhodes and Ivy is forced to take her to the hospital, where she has a run-in with Carol and the van der Woodsens. When Lola arrives, Ivy and Carol finally come clean about Carol's elaborate scheme and Ivy's role in all of it. Following this revelation, Ivy is turned away by the van der Woodsens' and turns to Georgina for help. The two later crash CeCe's wake, during which it is revealed that CeCe has left Ivy everything under her legal name, "Ivy Dickens," instead of her alias, "Charlotte Rhodes," revealing that CeCe knew about the fact that Ivy wasn't her real granddaughter. After this, Ivy evicts Lily and Rufus from their apartment, as it was previously owned by CeCe and left to Ivy in the will (The Princess Dowry).

Ivy is later kicked out of the apartment after Lily uses underhanded means to sabotage her. Rufus feels sorry for her as she has nowhere to live and no family, and pays out of his own pocket for her to stay at a hotel (Salon of the Dead). Lily, upon finding out William is Lola's father acts out of desperation to have Carol arrested and contacts Ivy. In exchange for her help, Lily will lift the blame from Ivy. Upon testifying against Carol, Lily writes Ivy a check for one million dollars, and asks her to leave and never return. Ivy begs Lily for her forgiveness and insists that all she wants is to be a part of her family and to win back her trust. Lily declines and bids her farewell. Leaving the apartment, Ivy tears Lily's check, revealing that Ivy truly wasn't in it for the Van der Woodsens' fortune and that she was telling the truth to Lily (Despicable B). In the finale The Return of the Ring, Lola returns the inheritance money to Ivy, who promises to use it to take down Lily.

Season Six[]

In the premiere Gone Maybe Gone, Ivy seduces Rufus and they enter into a relationship. She tries to persuade Rufus to go through unpacking a group of boxes that Lily had sent over to the loft after having all of his stuff from the apartment move out. She finds some incriminating evidence in the boxes and uses it to her advantage, to take down Lily (Portrait of a Lady Alexander). Chuck teams up with her as he tries to drive a wedge between Bart and Lily's relationship to help expose his father's secret. In Where the Vile Things Are, she is able to obtain Bart's records from his illegal oil dealings. Bart and Chuck are both desperate to get them, and she tells them that whoever plans to ruin Lily's life more can have them. Bart offers to divorce Lily but she decides this isn't enough and plans to stage that they slept together. Unbeknownst to her, Rufus found the records and gave them to Lily, so she loses out on having the upper hand on the Bass men (Save the Last Chance). In order to save Chuck in The Revengers, Blair hires her to help scheme against Bart, along with Serena, Georgina, and Sage Spence. Their plan works and Ivy is able to walk away without being hurt. In the series finale New York, I Love You XOXO, William reveals he was just using her to get back together with Lily and never loved her. Ivy is hurt and presumably leaves the city after her defeat.

Five years later, Ivy has written a best-selling autobiography, Ivy League, which has been adapted for film with Olivia Burke and Lola Rhodes starring.

Appearance and Style[]

Ivy is around 5"4', blonde (although depending on the episode, her hair has a reddish tint), and many note that she and Serena could definitely pass as cousins. While she lives on the UES, she dresses similar to Serena: lots of sweaters and pants. When she's unpacking after returning to the city, it's shown that the clothes she wore in Los Angeles were unstylish. During the day her hair remains straight, but for events she often wears her hair in a ponytail.

Personality[]

While acting as Charlie, Ivy often appeared quiet and demure; often in awe of Serena and Blair and the way they behave. She is scared of her mother and does what she says, usually without question or complaint. However, she eventually begins to turn that around and begins to stand up for herself, such as refusing to go back to Florida. Near the end of the fourth season she throws away medication and suffers from a mental breakdown, after which she returns to Florida. It's unknown whether her mental illness was real or a ploy to get her out of Manhattan.

After it's revealed that she is not the real Charlie, Ivy is portrayed by the VDWs as a con artist. However, she tries to make it clear on multiple occasions that she is not a criminal and only wants a family. She comes to care for everyone, including Dan, Blair, and Nate. But after everyone turns their back on her, she becomes more manipulative and cold.

Relationships[]

(Family; As Charlotte Rhodes)

Romances[]

As both Charlie and Ivy:

Quotes[]

"Call me Serena." -The Wrong Goodbye (4x21)

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"Everything here sparkles. I'm not walking away from that." -The Jewel of Denial (5x03)

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"No one can touch me. I'm a Rhodes now." -Rhodes to Perdition (5x09)

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"Your mother knew all of my secrets and she knew all of yours too. Maybe that's why she left me everything." -The Princess Dowry (5x17)

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"Lily acts so high and mighty but look at her. She's been married a dozen times, had countless affairs, a secret kid, she's even spent time under house arrest but never pays the price." -Portrait of a Lady Alexander (6x04)

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"You can pretend to be Lola, you can pretend to be Serena, but you will never be me." -Lily

"I don't want to be you. I want to be better. Rufus already thinks I am." -Where the Vile Things Are (6x06)

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"If I have to eat another waffle, I'll puke!" -Save the Last Chance (6x07)

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Trivia[]

  • She was once the owner of the van der Woodsen's penthouse because of it being part of CeCe Rhodes' estate.
  • Ivy appears to be naturally blonde, but in The Princess Dowry her hair has a much more pronounced reddish tint. (Kaylee DeFer dyed her hair in early February 2012.)
  • She is five foot four inches.
  • Five years later: Ivy has written a best-selling autobiography titled Ivy League which has been adapted into a major Hollywood feature film with her as the screenwriter and starring Olivia Burke and Lola Rhodes as the Serena and Ivy/Charlie characters.
  • She saves numbers but not names in her cell phone.

Gallery[]

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