Penn Badgley Says Blake Lively “Saved” Him From Alcohol Issues

Back in October 2010, Penn Badgely and Blake Lively broke up after three years of courting.

The pair bought collectively when their teen drama Gossip Girl first aired, throughout which they portrayed love pursuits Dan Humphrey and Serena van der Woodsen.

And regardless of parting methods lengthy earlier than their onscreen characters did, Penn and Blake remained tremendous skilled with one another on and off set.

In truth, government producer Joshua Safran revealed in 2017 that they “kept the breakup hidden” from crew members as a result of they didn’t need their private drama interfering with the present.

“They kept the breakup hidden from the crew, which you could never do now. I don’t even know how they did it. They kept it from everybody which is a testament to how good they are as actors. Because they did not want their personal drama to relate to the show,” he mentioned.

Getting candid about what it was like working with Blake after their cut up, Penn beforehand mentioned that “like anything valuable, it was good and it was bad and it was a learning experience.”

Now, over a decade on from their cut up, Penn is reflecting on the previous romance as soon as once more.

Speaking with Variety this week, the You actor truly credited Blake with taking part in an instrumental position in his life past their relationship.

Penn firstly recalled struggling along with his position as a tv actor through the years that he was taking pictures Gossip Girl, regardless of describing a lot of it as “fun and fast-paced.”

“I didn’t want to be in television,” he admitted. “I was biding time a lot with Dan — I was not invested. And I’m not saying it’s a good thing! I’m saying it’s just what it was.”

Penn defined that despite his newfound fame and wealth, he got here to comprehend that his life was no “better and easier.”

“Like anybody who experiences some degree of fame and wealth, I was presented with the universal truth that not only does it not make your life better or easier, it actually can greatly complicate things, and make you quite unhappy,” he mentioned.

Going on to recall falling into “a despair” in his late 20s, Penn famous that the “dark undercurrent” he skilled was “nothing short of a spiritual crisis.”

“I was never anything that I would define as suicidal at all, but I was certainly in a despair,” he mentioned. “It had to do with, Do I matter? Do I matter? Does anything matter?”

And when the interviewer questioned if Penn’s struggles had been substance-related, the 36-year-old clarified that this wasn’t the case, earlier than crediting his ex Blake with inadvertently steering him away from that path, provided that she doesn’t drink alcohol.

“To be honest, I never struggled with substance,” he mentioned. “Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.”

Penn revealed that he tried a collection of various measures to assist resolve his “spiritual crisis,” together with strategies like meditation, earlier than ultimately discovering consolation within the Baha’i religion.

The Baha’i religion facilities across the oneness of humankind, and Penn discovered himself drawn in direction of its teachings after turning into occupied by “social transformation.”

He recalled, “I was thinking a lot about social change, social action, social transformation — but also my own transformation, my own change.”

“I thought to myself, If I really want to participate in the betterment of the world, I think that I should become a Baha’i,” he mentioned, explaining that he noticed devotion to the religion as “the most committed pathway from individual transformation to social transformation.”