Reported Missing,Gossip GirlActress Chanel Banks Speaks Out After Being Found Safe

Mar. 15, 2025

Chanel Banksis ready to share her story.

In a preview of her appearance on True Crime News shared with PEOPLE ahead of its Monday, Nov. 18 air date, theGossip Girlactress opens up about why she decided to distance herself from her family and leave Los Angeles for Texas.

Chanel Banks at Fred Segal Fun at Village at the Yard during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2010.Chris Weeks/WireImage

Chris Weeks/WireImage

“I mean, the day I left was exactly seven days ago today. I haven’t been gone for three weeks. I haven’t been missing for three weeks. I’m an adult woman. I don’t have to call my mother every day,” she says.

“And lately, in the past couple months, I noticed the leash was getting longer, so I took advantage of that, and I kind of made preparations to head out, so to speak,” she says. “And I think that’s what really bamboozled her and got really upset.”

Banks alleges that she’s “tried to escape” in the past to no success and that her attempts at having her family “leave me alone” were never “enough.”

Chanel Banks attends “Take This Waltz” Special New York Screening at Sunshine Landmark on June 21, 2012.Jason Kempin/Getty

Jason Kempin/Getty

“She shows up to my house, but it’s not just that first,” she says.

“It is the phone calls, as I’ve mentioned, the cops will come after me so ardently every single time, and it’s always when you’re at the end of almost falling apart because people who’ve done things to you, abominable things, are in your face, and now they’re forcing everyone else to force you right back to them.”

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In a press release shared with PEOPLE, Banks also speaks about her relationship with her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, who created a GoFundMe that has since been taken down, where the alarm about Banks' whereabouts was first publicly raised. “This is not someone I have a relationship with [and] we definitely don’t have a sister-sister relationship.”

source: people.com