Penn Badgley explains why dating ‘Gossip Girl’ co-star Blake Lively was a ‘struggle’

Penn Badgley admits that dating Blake Lively was a “struggle” while they were filming “Gossip Girl” together back in the day.

During his appearance on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast Wednesday, the “You” star — who played Dan Humphrey on all six seasons of the hit teen drama — talked about how his on- and off-screen romance with Lively and her character, Serena van der Woodsen, was hard to separate.

“There are many differences between film and television. One of them is that when you do a film, you do it once. And you kind of give it your all and then you move on — whether you want to or not,” Badgley, 38, told host Cooper, 30.

Badgley further stated that when you shoot a TV show, “you’re doing it constantly.” 

Due to how successful the CW Network series became, fans began associating him with his character.

“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,” he explained.

“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.” 

Badgley, who was in his early 20s during filming, said he didn’t have the “emotional maturity to understand how to differentiate” himself from his role as Humphrey “in terms of self-worth.”

“What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me,” he said.

Lively, 37, and Badgley dated on and off from 2007 to 2010.

After the actors split, they remained cordial on set.

“They’re professionals,” a source told Us Weekly at the time. “They’re still good friends and hang out on the set.”

Two years later, the “A Simple Favor” actress tied the knot with Ryan Reynolds on a South Carolina plantation. Lively and the “Deadpool” star, 48, have welcomed four kids together.

Meanwhile, Badgley married Domino Kirke in 2017. The couple share son James, who was born in 2020, and the “Half Blood” singer, 41, is currently pregnant with twins.