Chace Crawford’s Nate Archibald Was Originally Gossip Girl
“And who am I? That’s one secret I’ll never tell.” The identity of the titular character on Gossip Girl became a mystery no more in the TV show’s final episode. But, as an executive producer revealed years later, they wanted Nate Archibald, played by Chace Crawford, to be Gossip Girl.
An executive producer had their ‘heart set’ on Crawford’s character being Gossip Girl
Joshua Safran, an executive producer and writer on Gossip Girl, revealed at the 2019 Vulture Festival that Dan Humphrey, aka Lonely Boy, played by Penn Badgley, wasn’t initially picked as the character behind the mysterious blog that caused so much drama for Manhattan’s elite. Instead, he wanted Crawford’s character, Nate, to be Gossip Girl.
“I like to joke that Dan was Gossip Girl because I had left the show by then,” Safran said (via BuzzFeed). “Dan was not my intended Gossip Girl. So honestly, you’d have to ask someone else. But I understand why Dan was Gossip Girl. I just had my heart set on Nate.”
For those who haven’t had the big reveal living rent-free in their mind since 2012, here’s a quick refresher. Nate, Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick), Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), and the rest of the Upper East Siders spent years having their secrets revealed by Gossip Girl. Only in the finale did they discover Dan, the aspiring writer and Constance Billard-St. Jude’s outsider, was behind the anonymous blog.
Eric van der Woodsen nearly became Gossip Girl before a writer suggested Nate Archibald
Before Nate, the writers also discussed the possibility of Eric van der Woodsen (Connor Paolo), Serena’s younger brother, being Gossip Girl. But the idea wasn’t around for long.
“We worked hard to kind of lay in tiny seeds about it being Eric,” Safran said. “And then the ‘NY Post’ wrote an article saying that Gossip Girl was Eric so we were like, ‘We gotta scratch that.’”
Only then did they look to Crawford’s character, Nate, as someone else who might make sense as Gossip Girl. “One of the writers realized that Nate had never sent a tip in to Gossip Girl, which is true at least through the end of season 5,” Safran explained. “Nate never sent in a tip in through all of those episodes, which is when we’re like, ‘Oh, well then he’s Gossip Girl.’”
Penn Badgley on Dan Humphrey being Gossip Girl: ‘I’m happy’
Fans of the CW drama weren’t the only ones who didn’t know Gossip Girl’s true identity until the series finale. The cast only found out when filming for the finale began. As Badgley told WIRED in 2023, he’d been shocked to discover his character, Dan, had been behind it all.
“Nobody knew. The writers have been clear about this,” Badgley said. “They had to decide who it was in the last season, you know, for like a finale. And I think he [Dan Humphrey] made the most sense. I found out, I think, just right before we started shooting the episode.”
“I really didn’t know what was coming down the pipe,” the You star added. “But in the end, I’m happy to wear the crown.”
Every season of CW’s Gossip Girl is streaming on Netflix.
