Penn Badgley says Blake Lively "saved" him from substance abuse

If you haven't realised already (where have you been?!) You season 4 is officially back. Yep, part one of the series dropped earlier this month and now sees serial killer Joe Goldberg attempt to lay low in London as an English Lit professor - only to get in hot water when he enters into a world of aristocrats and nepo babies among the English elite. He's always getting up to something, isn't he?

The second part of the season will be dropping in March (why so far away?) but in the interim, Penn Badgley - who plays Joe - has been giving us plenty to mull over in interviews publicising the show. During a recent podcast appearance, he explained why no sex scenes are present in the show this time around: he asked the showrunner not to include any, out of respect to his IRL marriage to Domino Kirke.

And now, in a new interview with Variety, he got candid about the early days of his fame on the Gossip Girl set, struggling with adjusting to his new life, and how ex-girlfriend Blake Lively helped him during this time.

Penn explains that while his time on the show was "fun and fast-paced”, he was struggling with his mental health and there was a “dark undercurrent that would bottom out in my later 20s.” He also admitted that he wasn't particularly committed to his role in the iconic teen drama, saying; “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.”

Ultimately, discovering the realities of fame prompted the actor to grapple with some hard truths. "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 explained.

But one thing that helped him in those early years was his relationship with Blake Lively, who acted alongside him in Gossip Girl as his character Dan's on-off girlfriend Serena. He credits Blake with helping him to avoid self-medicating through substance abuse, saying; “To be honest, I never struggled with substance. Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.”

Here's to Penn and his healing journey.

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