Gossip Girl hottie Leighton Meester covers this week’s Us Weekly.
Leighton, 22, was born to a drug smuggler mom in prison and the magazine delves into her remarkable saga of the family’s past and how they started over.
As Us Weekly reports in its new cover story, Connie Meester was pregnant with Leighton when she was sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison in Texas.
At 29, she gave birth while she was just beginning her sentence following a conviction for her involvement with a drug ring that was smuggling massive, 1,200-pound shipments of marijuana into the United States from Jamaica.
Her father, Doug, also served time for being part of the smuggling operation. At present, Doug works in construction and Connie is a screenwriter.

"It makes me very nonjudgmental and open-minded," the 22-year-old said. "And I think it just makes me appreciate the things that I have now."

Now, the Gossip Girl star and her mother - who was released in 1986 after serving only 16 months of her sentence - have a solid relationship.

"She's always there for me no matter what," Leighton Meester said of her mom. "I swear, that woman knows everything."