Gossip Girl Actress Chanel Banks Found Safe After Missing Report, Claims Family Abuse

Gossip Girl's Chanel Maya Banks Addresses Family Abuse Amid Missing Person Claims”>Chanel Banks, an actress known for her role on Gossip Girl, was reported missing by her family on November 8. They claimed she had vanished and something was wrong. On November 11, Banks was found safe in Texas, where she said she went on her own.

Banks later posted on her verified Instagram account, stating she had not been missing and accused her family of abuse. She described feeling pain from manipulation and torment by her family since childhood. In her post, Banks explained she traveled to Texas to get baptized by her pastor because she felt “finally free.”

The alarm about her disappearance began with her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh. Singh created a GoFundMe page, stating Banks had not been heard from since October 30 and traveled from Canada to help search for her. Singh said Banks usually communicated regularly with her and her mother.

Despite claims from the Los Angeles Police Department that Banks was fine, her family held a press conference, disputing that she had been found. They claimed the woman in body camera footage looked different than Banks. Singh noted the woman appeared skinnier and had a different accent.

In an interview, Banks stated she had to distance herself from her family and emphasized that she is okay. She accused Singh of lying about their relationship, highlighting that they had not spoken in over 15 years, a claim Singh contested. Banks labeled Singh as “fame-hungry.”

Banks also claimed her family was trying to put her in a conservatorship. Her husband, Carlos Jimenez, denied any attempt from his family to do this and mentioned that prior to her trip to Texas, Banks accused her family of abuse.

Banks affirmed that Jimenez had not harmed her. Singh, Kumar (Banks’ mother), and Banks’ stepfather did not immediately respond to requests for comments. In a Facebook post, Singh insisted that police had not truly found her cousin and suggested the body camera footage showed an impostor.

Chanel Banks appeared on three episodes of Gossip Girl and one episode of Blue Bloods.