Even 'Gossip Girl' stars Penn Badgley and Chace Crawford agree that the show's big reveal makes no sense: 'It didn't really line up'
- "Gossip Girl" stars Penn Badgley and Chace Crawford spoke about the show's big reveal about the mysterious blogger during a new interview for Variety's "Actors on Actors" series.
- "At the end of 'Gossip Girl' the show, whatever your reaction is on whether it was smart to do that or not, that he's Gossip Girl — it didn't really line up with the character of Dan," Crawford said.
- Badgley agreed and has previously spoken about why the plot twist doesn't make sense.
"Gossip Girl" stars Penn Badgley (Dan Humphrey) and Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald) agree that the show's big reveal about the identity of the elusive blogger makes no sense.
"At the end of 'Gossip Girl' the show, whatever your reaction is on whether it was smart to do that or not, that he's Gossip Girl — it didn't really line up with the character of Dan. Right?" Crawford said during a conversation with Badgley for Variety's "Actors on Actors" series.
In response, Badgley said, "Yeah."
The real Gossip Girl was revealed on the series finale of the show
"Gossip Girl" lasted for six seasons on The CW between September 2007 and December 2012. On the series finale, it was finally revealed that Dan, a writer and outsider from Brooklyn whose inner circle was comprised of wealthy Upper East Siders, was the person behind the mysterious site.
During the episode, titled "New York, I Love You XOXO," Dan gave Nate the final chapter of his serial (titled "Inside Out") to be published on The Spectator. Right after Blair and Chuck's wedding in Central Park, everyone received a blast message about the chapter.
The following scene featured a montage of celebrity cameos, including a meta one from "Gossip Girl" narrator Kristen Bell, reacting to the news that the blogger who caused destruction throughout the series was Dan.
In the voiceover, Dan explained that he wanted to be part of the elite group, but didn't come from an opulent background.
"If I wasn't born into this world, maybe I could write myself into it," Dan said, explaining that he was able to blog as a gossip-monger because he spent years picking up on the vernacular of the students at the Constance Billard School for Girls.
He went on to say that he launched the website after finding his muse in Serena Van Der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and writing the first post about her arrival back in NYC.
For devoted fans who watched the series from start to finish, Dan's identity as Gossip Girl simply didn't add up
On some level, it was believable because Dan was an underdog and observer of the Upper East Siders. He was also a talented writer, so it somewhat made sense for his observations to become the focal point of a blog.
But people found it hard it believe that Dan would betray the people closest to him, like on-again, off-again girlfriend Serena, by anonymously posting malicious rumors about them online. Reports, tips, and photos posted on the blog often led to dangerous consequences for the people involved.
It also seemed strange that Dan appeared to be surprised whenever he read rumors on the site, or that he would leak information about his own family members.
'GG' executive producer Stepanie Savage told E! News that the plan was always for Dan to be Gossip Girl.
"We never really entertained any other ideas of who Gossip Girl was," she said. "It was whether we were going to reveal it."
Savage also said that they had to reedit a sequence from the pilot, because a test audience figured out that Dan was Gossip Girl.
"We could have made the show two hours long with just Rufus drilling Dan about all of those things," she said. "'What about this time and what about that other time? Wait, you wrote this about yourself?!' My hope is that people who are really curious about that can go back and rewatch the season and get their brains going."
Speaking to TV Guide, Savage added that they "always had an idea in our minds of who Gossip Girl was, which we needed to be able to tell our stories, but we were never sure if we were going to reveal that."
Badgley previously spoke about his confusion over the reveal
"I was very surprised. We were all surprised," the actor told HuffPost Live in 2013. "I didn't know. I didn't find out until just before we shot the last episode."
Elaborating on the plot twist, Badgley said: "It technically doesn't make sense for anyone to be Gossip Girl. I would have loved it if there had been a million flashes of every time he had looked at his cell phone and was like receiving some blast from Gossip Girl and being blown away from it."
"It doesn't make sense at all," the actor told People in 2015. "It wouldn't have made sense for anybody. 'Gossip Girl' doesn't make sense!"
He added: "But no, it made enough sense. He was a writer."