{"id":69871,"date":"2025-04-17T14:40:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T18:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/?p=69871"},"modified":"2025-04-30T14:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T18:41:39","slug":"penn-badgley-opens-up-about-the-toxic-glamor-of-gossip-girl-and-how-it-shaped-his-relationship-with-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/penn-badgley-opens-up-about-the-toxic-glamor-of-gossip-girl-and-how-it-shaped-his-relationship-with-fame\/69871\/","title":{"rendered":"Penn Badgley opens up about the toxic glamor of Gossip Girl and how it shaped his relationship with fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penn Badgley<\/strong>, who became a household name thanks to his role as the brooding outsider Dan Humphrey<\/strong> on Gossip Girl<\/em>, is opening up about the downsides of his rise to fame. While the show catapulted him into stardom, Badgley now admits that the glamorous, image-driven world of Hollywood wasn\u2019t all it was cracked up to be. In a candid interview with The Guardian<\/em>, the actor reflects on the impact the show and celebrity culture had on him, and why he doesn\u2019t miss the attention that came with it.<\/p>\n

Badgley didn\u2019t shy away from calling out the \u201csuperficial celebrity aspect\u201d<\/strong> that came with his time on the CW teen drama, which ran from 2007 to 2012. He explained, \u201cWhat was that show other than aesthetic? That was its thing, the way we all looked.\u201d He acknowledged that Gossip Girl<\/em> thrived more on the characters\u2019 appearances than on any deeper substance, something that ultimately didn\u2019t sit well with him.<\/p>\n

He went on to express his discomfort with how he was perceived at the height of his fame, saying, \u201cI didn\u2019t particularly love the superficial celebrity aspect of the way I was perceived.\u201d The actor reflected on how his early career pushed him into an industry that often equated his worth with his looks, something that became especially difficult for him as he dealt with depression and isolation<\/strong>. For Badgley, the industry\u2019s focus on conventional beauty was both enticing and suffocating<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to escape the superficiality of this work,\u201d Badgley shared, noting that once you recognize that, it\u2019s impossible not to see the superficiality of society as a whole.<\/p>\n

In addition to the pressures of fame, Badgley also revealed that he struggled with body dysmorphia<\/strong> as a child, which only intensified the pressure to meet Hollywood\u2019s beauty standards. He confessed that aspiring to look like the classic actors he admired \u201cjust seemed like an impossibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gossip Girl<\/em>, based on the books by Cecily von Ziegesar<\/strong>, followed a group of wealthy teens living on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side, with Badgley\u2019s Dan Humphrey<\/strong> serving as the outsider who infiltrates their elite world. Although the 2021 Max<\/em> reboot of Gossip Girl<\/em> referenced both Dan and Serena (Blake Lively), neither of the original stars returned to reprise their roles, marking a clear break from the show\u2019s glittery past.<\/p>\n

Even though Gossip Girl<\/em> remains a beloved part of pop culture, Badgley\u2019s reflections on his time on the show peel back the shiny surface to reveal the emotional toll<\/strong> of living in the spotlight. These days, Badgley has chosen to focus on darker, more complex roles<\/strong>\u2014most notably playing Joe Goldberg<\/strong> in You<\/em>. The actor has found peace and fulfillment away from the superficial trappings of fame, opting for roles that allow him to explore much deeper, more meaningful characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penn Badgley, who became a household name thanks to his role as the brooding outsider Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":69872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[26334],"class_list":["post-69871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-news","tag-penn-badgley"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/294"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}