Handsome. Brooding. Manly. Hunky. The list of adjectives goes on and on.

Just please, don't call Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick pretty, whatever you do.

Asked about Chace Crawford's comment in this week's People magazine, which named him the hottest Bachelor of '09, about his "Velcro patch of chest-hair," Westwick delivered a snarky retort of his own for his friend and fellow Gossip Girl co-star:

"I'm just not a pretty little boy, now am I?"

The hordes of young women gathered at Bloomingdale's K-Swiss Classic Remastered dance-off party Thursday in Manhattan might take issue with that.

Wherever Ed Westwick goes, fans automatically congregate.

Gossip, too, has a way of attaching itself to the British actor – be it false rumors of a more-than-friends relationship with Crawford or about his expanding waistline.

Westwick, however, isn't about to let that any of that get him down: "I'm over everything that's been in the past, and everything right now is fantastic, man," he says.

Speaking of fantastic, just how does Westwick manage to look so good? "I've never been a real gym guy," he admits. "I always got my fitness through playing soccer."

Steve Marsi is the Managing Editor of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Google+ or email him here.