Ed Westwick supports Kelly Rutherford's custody petition

Kelly Rutherford has been given a huge boost in her custody fight after her Gossip Girl co-star Ed Westwick rallied his Twitter.com followers to sign a White House petition calling for the actress' kids to be returned to the U.S. from France.

The mother of two launched the campaign on the White House website last month (Apr15), calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to step in and aid her case after a judge sent eight-year-old son Hermes and five-year-old daughter Helena to live with her German ex-husband, Daniel Giersch, in France in 2012.

She needs 100,000 signatures by 28 May (15) in order to have the leader address the petition directly, and on Saturday (09May15), she received the support of her pal Westwick, who took up her cause by calling on his 722,000 Twitter followers to sign the page and spread the word, writing, "Take a minute to sign the petition urging the White House to help bring @KellyRutherford's kids home".

He continued to push the petition on Tuesday (11May15), when he shared a snap of the actors onscreen together and captioned it, "This is my friend @KellyRutherford. You (yes, you) have the power to help her get her kids back".

Westwick then proceeded to tweet messages like, "She only needs 16k more signatures, there are 721k of you..YOU all have the power to help @KellyRutherford in a major way. Come on westies (fans)!" and "RT (retweet) If you think @KellyRutherford is the best mom, on and off screen, & she deserves to have her kids back!".

He even offered to "follow the next 100" who did as he asked and managed to add at least 4,000 signatures to the petition within an hour of tweeting about the campaign on Tuesday.

Westwick isn't the only Gossip Girl cast member to show his support - Rutherford's onscreen husband, played by Matthew Settle, has also given his backing to the cause.

Rutherford has been fighting for a review of the custody arrangement since 2012, but she suffered another setback in April (15) when a judge denied her latest request to overturn the previous ruling.

As WENN went to press, the petition boasted over 94,000 signatures.