The series finale of Gossip Girl aired in 2012, and since then fans have continued to try to wrap their heads around how Dan Humphrey of Brooklyn could be Gossip Girl. It took six seasons to reveal that Dan was the secret source of the mischievous blog. Many fans have been confused about how he was the one responsible for the blasts for many reasons, including how shocked he’d be when he’d get one of his own blasts.
But as it turns out, the original show’s writer and producer, Joshua Safran, revealed it wasn’t supposed to be Dan as Gossip Girl originally. He confessed it was never supposed to be Dan, but rather Nate Archibald who ran the iconic blog sharing the secrets of Manhattan’s elite.
“I think there would have been holes in anybody being Gossip Girl, and it wasn’t Dan when I left the show [after season five], but I also understand why it is Dan,” Safran told The Daily Beast.
He continued, “Yes, I agree there are things that don’t line up, but it had to be Dan.”
“I wanted it to be Nate, and it actually makes much more sense when it’s Nate – even when it doesn’t make sense. I mean, it would have been great to never reveal it.”
The reasoning behind why Safran’s first choice was Nate makes more sense than naming Dan Gossip Girl.
“It was Nate. It was Nate until the day I left,” Safran said.
“I think we all came to the conclusion that it might be Nate by the end of season four, and then we spent Season five teeing it up,” he said. He added that “if you watch it, there are many clues to it being Nate.”
“I also think weirdly, in noir fashion, it’s great that we dropped a red herring,” he added. “But it wasn’t as organic as Dan. With Dan, it makes sense because he wanted to find a way in.”
“But with Nate, it was because he’d never sent anything in to Gossip Girl, and if it had been Nate, it was based on this idea that he’d felt so guilty for sleeping with Serena that he had to create an alter ego to bring us all to it.”
Safran had previously mentioned that Eric Van der Woodsen had also been considered for the role. However, while at 2017 Vulture Fest, he disclosed that that idea was rejected after the New York Post published an article revealing that it was Eric after all.
Both Penn Badgley, who played Dan, and Chase Crawford, who plays Nate, have spoken about how they feel about the writers’ decision. They addressed the controversial series final and how they were surprised by the revelation when they appeared on Variety’s Actors on Actors series.
“[Whatever] your reaction is on whether it was smart to do that or not, that [Dan’s] Gossip Girl – it didn’t really line up with the character of Dan. Right?” Crawford asked Badgley. Badgley just responded, “Yeah.”
The Gossip Girl reboot airs tomorrow, July 8. Hopefully it can live up to the original (or at least be half as good).
