Gossip Girl's Identity Was Originally Meant to Be Somebody Completely Different 

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\'s identity turned out to be rather controversial...but it was originally meant to be somebody completely different. (Dan Humphrey, played by Penn Badgley, was revealed to be the anonymous blogger terrorising the Upper East Side—a rather divisive move.)

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On the 10th anniversary of the show, executive producer Joshua Safran explained that there were two other major possibilities that they considered before they landed on Lonely Boy.

The first choice? None other than Serena\'s brother Eric van der Woodsen (Connor Paolo).

"I always thought it was Eric until the end of season two, and I even guided it that way," he told

revealed it was Eric—and I still don\'t know how that happened, I think they were just guessing—we realized we couldn\'t go down that road anymore, so we abandoned him."

The producers also considered Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford). Safran said that this was largely because he never sent any tips to the blogger.

\'s piece continued, "because Dan\'s a writer, observer, and could write in different styles."

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