Who is gossip girl

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the original Gossip Girl. Proceed at your own risk.

Since the series finale of Gossip Girl aired in 2012, fans of the teen drama continue to be up in arms over the true identity of the titular character.

After six seasons of hearing Kristen Bell's mischievous voice-over—and witnessing endless morally inept blasts—the real person behind the secret source was revealed to be none other than Dan Humphrey.

To this day, many fans (including us) are still confused over the show writers' decision to make Serena van der Woodsen's beau the face behind the blog/blasts for a multitude of reasons, one being that he was always visibly shocked by his own blasts. Yes, even when he was alone.

But as it turns out, Joshua Safran, a writer and producer from the original show, revealed exactly which character was originally meant to be in Dan's shoes as Gossip Girl. He admitted that it was never meant to be Dan, but rather Nate Archibald who ran the notorious blog detailing 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."

But of course, the reasoning behind why Nate was Safran's first choice makes slightly more sense than the choice to give the title to Lonely Boy.

"It was Nate. It was Nate until the day I left," Safran admitted.

"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, adding 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 continued. "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."

And while fans may not agree with the thought of Nate (played by Chace Crawford) being behind the Manhattan madness, Safran has previously mentioned that that Eric van der Woodsen, Serena's little brother, was once considered for the role. However, while at 2017 Vulture Fest, he revealed that that plan was abandoned after the New York Post wrote an article revealing that it was Eric after all.

As for the cast themselves, fans already know how Penn Badgley, who played Dan, feels about the writers' decision. Appearing on Variety's Actors on Actors series, Badgley and Crawford addressed the controversial series final and how they too were surprised by the revelation.

"[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, to which he simply replied, "Yeah."

As we know, the Gossip Girl reboot is airing in mere days and will revive the original dilemma, thanks to a new Gossip Girl presence residing on an Instagram account. And while Kristen Bell is set to resume her voice over role, the face behind the account is yet to be discovered. Here's hoping it's not a 30-year-old Dan.

If you're yet to mark your calendar, the Gossip Girl reboot premieres on Binge on July 8.

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