Penn Badgley Makes Rare Comment About Ex Blake Lively

Penn Badgley and Blake Lively were an iconic couple nearly 20 years ago!

The two dated while they were starring as love interests on the hit series “Gossip Girl,” which is something that Penn admits was “the struggle” in their relationship.

In a podcast interview with Alex Cooper on “Call Her Daddy,” Badgley explained, “When you do a television show, you're doing it constantly because of the nature of that show. You feel like you're constantly, even though no one may be actually asking you to do this, you feel like you're constantly needing to prove yourself in some manner. Otherwise, what are you doing? I mean, you know, what is the space?”

As the show became more popular, fans started viewing Penn as his character Dan Humphrey and he didn’t have the “emotional maturity to understand how to differentiate” his personal and professional life in his 20s. 

He noted, “What starts to happen when you're in this one role for a long time — the aspect of celebrity being a part of it, a huge part of it — there is not enough separation, I think, for anybody. You're seen as this person, you're called their name out on the street. You also constantly have to be that person at work, and I was 20. I was 21, 22, so I didn't have the emotional maturity to understand, to differentiate myself just in terms of self-worth."

He summed it up, "What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me.”

Blake and Penn eventually broke up while the show was still on the air, but they kept it amicable.

Last year, Penn shared on his “Podcrushed” podcast, “I'm pretty sure we were exes for nearly half of the run of the entire series. We were always very professional. We had to do all kinds of nutso stuff. Having a fake marriage by the end of it. I don't even think, in my memory, there was not one bit of strangeness. It wasn't even a thing.”

“Extra” recently spoke with Badgley about whether he keeps in touch with his “Gossip Girl” co-stars.

He commented, “I’ve had some of them on the podcasts. It’s sort of like college roommates, you know, you just move on. You move on. There’s a love there. Live your life.”