Just weeks after dumping her boyfriend of five years,Leona Lewisis rumoured to be getting close to Gossip Girlactor Chace Crawford.

Leona and Chace have stayed in touch since she hand-picked him to star in her video for I Will Be. The actor, who plays pretty boy Nate Archibald on Gossip Girl, has become one of the singer’s closest friends in Los Angeles.

“They get on brilliantly and have a giggle. And pals are convinced there could be a romance brewing,” an insider told The Mirror. “Leona wants to be single for a while though, she's in no hurry to get into a relationship. Her priority is work.”

The globetrotting singer had a trial separation from her boyfriend of five years, Lou Al-Chamaa, before they finally split for good in June. A friend told Look magazine the pair had been struggling for over a year. "She and Lou actually went through a trial separation to see if that helped, but all it did was prove they are living separate lives.

“They talked about him moving out to California but his life is in London and he's a home-loving guy. Leona is a global figure which means being in America for a lot of the time, and he wasn't interested in that type of life."

After her current tour ends in Cardiff this Tuesday, 6 July, Leona will be jetting off to Eastern Europe to help publicise work for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). “I’m going to Romania for a charity trip to visit a bear sanctuary where they’re rehabilitating dancing bears from Europe,” she explained.

Then it will be straight back into the recording studio to start work on her third album. “I think that’s going to be a bit different from what people have heard from me before,” Leona said.

“I think that with going in different directions musically with the show, it’s given people a different vibe from what they had before, so it’s going to be different and fun. I’m just going to go in and create and just see what happens.”