Penn Badgley recently spoke out on how his past relationship with Blake Lively "saved" him.
In an all-new interview with Variety, the You star opened up about his past ventures, his ex-lovers, and how he managed to find himself while playing Netflix's favorite fictional serial killer, Joe Goldberg.
While there were multiple points of interest in the new tell-all, one moment stood out for fans especially those OGs who followed the 36-year-old star when he first got onto the scene.
For those of you that might not be aware, Badgley rose to fame throughout the late 2000s in Gossip Girl where he played Dan Humphrey. There he went on to meet Lively, who played "It Girl" Serena van der Woodsen, and though the couple had a long-standing romance on the show, they also started a relationship outside of it - much to the joy of Gossip Girl fans.
The couple dated for around three years before calling it quits in 2010 and forming bonds with their current partners. However, that hasn't stopped them from speaking about each other in a positive light.
In the interview with Variety, Badgley stated that the press was obsessed with the pair's relationship at the time, adding that "Beyond our relationship, I don’t think anybody was going to be interested in me publicly."
He then went on to state that if it wasn't for their relationship during that incredibly "fast-paced" period in his life, he would have gone down a dark path in his twenties.
"To be honest, I never struggled with substance [abuse]," the 36-year-old told the outlet. "Blake didn't drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road."
Badgley was pretty candid about not wanting to be on television, but he later admitted that the mindset stemmed from nothing but "a spiritual crisis."
"Like anybody who experiences some degree of fame and wealth," he explained, "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."
"I was never anything that I would define as suicidal at all, but I was certainly in a despair," Badgley continued. "It had to do with 'Do I matter? Do I matter? Does anything matter?' These questions do inform how we feel. The answer that I came upon was 'Yes.' I think we all have to come to that. I don't know how you could come to 'No' and be happy, so we all have to come to that 'Yes' somehow. Probably repeatedly."
And it seems as though the Forever Strong star found that comfort in his Bahá'ís faith as well as his little family which includes his wife, Domino Kirke, their son James Badgley and his stepson Cassius Riley.
"If this is how I'm going to exist in a way that for me is sustainable—emotionally and spiritually and psychologically," he said, "then this is how I'm gonna do it."
Season four of You is now available to watch on Netflix.
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