These days, when the name Chace Crawford comes up, his role as The Deep in The Boys – which just finished airing its latest season on the 2024 TV schedule – probably comes to mind first. However, he’ll always and forever be known for his role in the Gossip Girl cast as Nate Archibald too. Now, we’re getting a blast from the past as Sweet Magnolia’s JoAnna Garcia Swisher opened up about working with Crawford, and how her trip to New York City to make out on screen with him led to a life plot twist that involved her now-husband, Nick Swisher.
Now, when you look at the relationships in Sweet Magnolias, Garcia Swisher plays a pivotal role in them. She’s one of the show’s leads, and at the end of Season 3 her character Maddie is still with Cal. Meanwhile, in the grand scheme of Gossip Girl relationships, her role as Bree Buckley didn’t play a big role at all seeing as she was only in four episodes.
However, it ended up being a life-changing job for the actress, because that’s how she met her husband. She dished about this cute story with She Knows, explaining:
So when I first got asked to do Gossip Girl, I thought ‘Who doesn’t want to go spend the summer in New York City making out with Chace Crawford?' But plot twist, I ended up making out, well I did make out with Chase Crawford onscreen, but I made out with my husband because this is where I met Nick [Swisher].
For a bit of context, JoAnna Garcia Swisher appeared in four episodes (specifically, the first, second, third and fifth episodes) of Gossip Girl’s third season, which aired in 2009. She played a love interest of Nate’s, who he met over the summer, and they had a very short-lived and dramatic relationship – which is par for the course on this show.
They had a passionate relationship, that did involve making out, and it ended with a bang and betrayal.
In real life, Garcia Swisher’s romance had a much happier ending. She went on to explain that she met her husband in the big city, and they got married in 2010. It sounds like an adorable meet-cute, as she explained:
I met Nick probably a couple of days into coming to New York City to film Gossip Girl.
→ Sweet Magnolias can be streamed with a Netflix subscription.
→ You can watch all of Gossip Girl with a Max subscription.
→ To see Chace Crawford in his latest work, The Boys, all you need is an Amazon Prime subscription.
At the time, Nick Swisher, who is a former professional baseball player, was playing for the New York Yankees, who won the World Series in 2009. So, that year was a very good one for this couple!
According to People, the two dated for less than a year before getting engaged in May of 2010. Now, they’ve been together for 14 years, and they have two kids – Emerson Jay Swisher, who was born in 2013, and Sailor Stevie Swisher, who came into the world in 2016.
The two are still thriving too! JoAnna Garcia Swisher has been leading the Sweet Magnolias cast since 2020, and the series has been renewed for a fourth season. Meanwhile, her hubby retired from playing baseball in 2017, and now he’s a special advisor for the Yankees and the co-owner of Baseball United, per his Instagram.
Now, don’t think I forgot about where this story began. Chace Crawford is doing fantastic too! He’s part of one of Amazon Prime’s best shows – The Boys – and that’s about to head into its final season.
And to think…all of this started because of Gossip Girl. I guess there’s a reason why she says “You know you love me.”
