Elizabeth Hurley to Become a Gossip Girl?

Looks like Upper East Side princesses Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen might have some sexy competition come fall. TVLine.com reported today that Elizabeth Hurley will be guest starring on The CW's sudsy teen drama "Gossip Girl" for it's upcoming fifth season.

Hurley will join the show for a multi-episode arc playing a character named Diana Payne. According to executive producers Stephanie Savage and Joshua Safran her character will be a "sexy, smart, self-made media mogul and all-around force to be reckoned with."

Hurley was most recently attached to the new "Wonder Woman" pilot passed over by NBC starring Adrianne Palicki and written by David E. Kelly. In the female superhero caper she would have played a nemesis to Wonder Woman, but now it looks like she'll be terrorizing our favorite elite New Yorkers.

"Diana’s entrance on the Upper East Side will change the lives of all our characters — including, and especially, Gossip Girl herself," Savage and Safran said about her character.

Sounds like Hurley will play a fairly pivotal role in the new season of the show about the scandalous lives of the rich and morality-free characters of "Gossip Girl." Maybe the most interesting part of this casting scoop is the hint that Hurley might be going stiletto to stiletto with the show’s titular mysterious blogger.

Over time the show's focus has strayed from the influence of Gossip Girl, the all-seeing and all-knowing blogger who keeps tabs on the antics of the show's main characters. In the first season Gossip Girl was instrumental in breaking stories that changed the lives of the characters. In the second season Blake Lively's Serena undertook a mission to unmask the mysterious gossip-hound. Recently, however, the show lost focus on the omnipresent show narrator and even her often crazy act-ending zingers have faded into the background.

Hurley's character will hopefully bring some welcome mystery back to the identity of Gossip Girl, voiced by Kristen Bell of "Veronica Mars" fame. The show had some success last season using guest stars to fuel story arcs when Katie Cassidy played the villainous, Serena-hating Juliet. Perhaps the producers are hoping to duplicate that success?

What do you think of Hurley's casting? Will we finally find out more about the mysterious Gossip Girl? And will Chace Crawford's Nate inevitably hook up with her, like he does with every female guest star or cast member? Sound off in the comments below!