Many fans felt that the reveal of the series was not convincing or believable enough
The writer of the Gossip Girl series has revealed which of the characters was originally meant to be the person running the Gossip Girl blog.
The hit drama, based on the novels by Cecily von Ziegesar, follows the lives of a group of wealthy teenagers living on the Upper East Side of New York.
The series is narrated by an unknown, know-it-all blogger named “Gossip Girl” (voiced by Kristen Bell), who regularly reveals secrets over the course of the show’s six seasons, stirring up drama.
Fans of the series will remember that the man behind the account was eventually revealed as Dan Humphrey (played by Penn Badgley) in a twist that many fans criticised as not convincing or believable enough.
However, now Joshua Safran – one of the show’s writers – has revealed that Gossip Girl was originally a different character.
Safran told The Daily Beast: “I wanted it to be Nate, and it does make a lot more sense when it’s Nate – even when it doesn’t make sense. I mean, it would be great to never reveal it.”
He went on to explain that it was Nate (portrayed by Chase Crawford) who was originally meant to be Gossip Girl.
“It was Nate until the day I left,” he said. I think by the end of season four we all came to the conclusion that it might be Nate, and then we spent season five pondering.”
“If you watch the film, you’ll see plenty of clues that it’s Nate. But I also think, oddly enough, in the noir style, it’s great that we threw in a red herring. But it wasn’t as organic as it was with Dan.”
Safran went on to explain the reasons why Nate would be an acceptable choice, stating that “it was based on the idea that he felt so guilty about sleeping with Serena (Blake Lively) that he had to create an alter ego to bring us all down”.
However, when Dan became Gossip Girl, Safran said that Badgley’s outsider character was an acceptable option because “he wanted to find his way in [to the ‘cool’ crowd]”.
The Gossip Girl series ran from 2007 to 2012. Last year, a reboot of the series was announced.
Safran is serving as showrunner for the upcoming reboot, which will air in the UK on BBC One later this year.
