Penn Badgley opens up about huge conflict while dating Blake Lively

Penn Badgley got candid about his relationship with Gossip Girl co-star, Blake Lively in a new interview, and while he had nothing but praises for her, he did “struggle” while dating her.

The 38-year-old actor and Lively dated from 2007 to 2010 while their characters Dan Humphrey and Serena van der Woodsen were also linked romantically and it did end up creating a conflict in the relationship.

During his interview on the podcast Call Her Daddy on Wednesday, April 23rd, the You star shared that he couldn’t “separate” his job from his life while dating Lively.

Explaining the confusion, he continued, “I mean, that's a great question because it was the struggle. When you do a television show, you're doing it constantly.”

He shared that he began to be known for his on-screen persona, “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.”

As a young person in his 20s, Badgley shared that he lacked the “emotional maturity to understand how to differentiate” himself from Dan “in terms of self-worth.”

Looking back at the time, he said, “What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me.”

Badgley went on to share that his love life was also greatly impacted by his parents’ divorce when he was young and he was “starved for many kinds of intimacy.”