Dan Humphrey wasn't supposed to be Gossip Girl
At this year's Vulture Festival, Gossip Girl executive producer Joshua Safran confirmed that Dan Humphrey was not his original choice for Gossip Girl.
His first choice: Eric Van Der Woodsen. "We worked hard to kind of lay in tiny seeds about it being Eric, and then the NY Post wrote an article saying that Gossip Girl was Eric so we were like, 'We gotta scratch that.'"
The second choice was Nate Archibal. "One of the writers realized that Nate had never sent a tip in to Gossip Girl, which is true at least through the end of Season 5. Nate never sent in a tip in through all of those episodes, which is when we're like, 'Oh, well then he's Gossip Girl.'"
As to how it ended up being Dan Humphrey: "I like to joke that Dan was Gossip Girl because I had left the show by then. Dan was not my intended Gossip Girl, so honestly you'd have to ask someone else."
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