"Gossip Girl" actor Chanel Banks has been found safe two weeks after family members reported her missing.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to People magazine that Banks, 36, was found safe in Texas on Monday. No foul play occurred, the spokesperson noted.
"She is fine," LAPD spokesperson Charles Miller told the outlet. "No danger. She is OK. She has been taken out of the missing person system for us, and we have closed our investigation.”
Miller confirmed Banks, who played Sawyer Bennett in "Gossip Girl," was found by an outside agency, adding that the delay in announcing the news was due to coordination between law enforcement.
Banks' cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, set up a now-deleted GoFundMe page explaining that the actor hadn't been in contact with her loved ones since Oct. 30, People reported.
According to the page, police conducted welfare checks on Banks on Nov. 7 and 8, but she was not found at her Playa Vista apartment on either occasion. Singh, who had traveled from Toronto to search for her missing cousin, said she and her aunt were able to enter Banks' apartment on Nov. 10.
They discovered that the actor had left behind her dog and car, which was parked in the garage. While most of her belongings were still in the apartment, her phone and laptop were missing, Singh reported.
"Five days without hearing from my cousin is red flags and alarm bells," Singh told KABC at the time. "She doesn't go more than 48 hours without speaking to me or her mom. ... That girl is more like a big sister to me."
Banks appeared in shows like "Blue Bloods," "Twelve," and "Gossip Girl" but according to Singh, had recently stepped away from acting to concentrate on writing.
"I can tell you in my soul, in my gut, something is not right. ... We're crossing two weeks now without a word, without a sound. Nothing," she added.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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