Do you remember where you were the day you discovered Dan Humphrey was really Gossip Girl all along? We do. We were sitting in front of our television, open-mouthed, unable to believe that 'lonely boy' was picked to be the scandalous author on the Netflix show.
MORE: Netflix are removing Gossip Girl from its platform – and fans are not happy about it
According to the show's executive producer, Joshua Safran, this was never actually meant to be the plan. Not at all surprised? Neither are we. But who was Gossip Girl actually intended to be in the first place? Find out here...
WATCH: Amazing films to watch before the new year
Chatting at the Vulture Festival, Joshua revealed that they had two options for the true identity of the website author who kept our favourite characters on their toes, and their first choice was Serena's younger brother, Eric van der Woodsen.
Speaking via BuzzFeed, he said: "Dan was not my intended Gossip Girl. We worked hard to kind of lay in tiny seeds about it being Eric." However, they ultimately decided against it after an article in the New York Post correctly guessed his identity.
Eric was originally meant to be Gossip Girl
He continued: "We were like, 'We gotta scratch that.' 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.'"
MORE: Inside Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' £4.3million NY house
MORE: Gossip Girl then and now: see how much the cast has changed over the years
However, Joshua admitted that even he was surprised by the final result being Dan after he left the show in its penultimate season. He said: "I like to joke that Dan was Gossip Girl because I had left the show by then. But, I understand why Dan was Gossip Girl. I just had my heart set on Nate."
The show's producers changed it to Nate before it was eventually revealed to be Dan
Penn Badgley, who plays Dan, admitted that he was surprised by the reveal during the HuffPost Live back in 2013. He said: "I was very surprised. We were all surprised. I didn't know. I didn't find out until just before we shot the last episode.
"It technically doesn't make sense for anyone to be Gossip Girl. I would have loved it if there had been a million flashes of every time he had looked at his cell phone and was like receiving some blast from Gossip Girl and being blown away from it."
Like this story? Sign up to our newsletter to get other stories like this delivered straight to your inbox.
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.
Sign up to the streaming service here, to be the first to watch and catch up on the original Gossip Girl, and series' like Big Little Lies and Sex And The City.
Warning: Major Gossip Girl and Gossip Girl reboot spoilers ahead.
Gossip Girl may have had viewers hooked for six seasons before revealing the identity of the elusive blogger, but the reboot has gone and given it away in episode one.
The show follows a new group of scandalous teens and picks up eight years after the original series revealed that Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) was the infamous Gossip Girl.
In the first episode, it’s revealed that Kate Keller (Tavi Gevinson) is the brains behind the operation, leaving some fans a little confused.
However, showrunner Joshua Safran has revealed that people might be missing the point.
‘I felt like it had been done already, and the reason to do a show again is to find something new to look at,’ he told TV Line.
‘The first time around, when we didn’t know that Dan was Gossip Girl, he would do terrible things like send in a post while sitting next to his sister while she was having waffles, knowing that she would be destroyed once she looked at her phone and that he would be the one who destroyed her.
‘That was a full avenue that we never drove down, so it felt like this was the time to look at that — all the things we never got to see Dan do when he was Gossip Girl.’
Joshua added: ‘What we’re exploring is that no one can successfully play God. The question is: How long do you think you can? And what does that actually do to you?’
Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen), Leighton Meester (Blair Waldorf), Ed Westwick (Chuck Bass) and Chace Crawford (Nate Archibald) starred alongside Penn in the original series, which hit screens in 2007.
Narrated by the unknown, omniscient blogger Gossip Girl (voiced by Kristen Bell), the series revolved around the lives of privileged upper-class adolescents living in Manhattan’s Upper East Side
Meanwhile, the reboot, which viewers have been pleasantly surprised by, picks up almost a decade later.
The synopsis for the Gossip Girl reboot reads: ‘Eight years after the original website went dark, a new generation of New York private school teens are introduced to the social surveillance of Gossip Girl.
‘The prestige series will address just how much social media—and the landscape of New York itself—has changed in the intervening years.’
Whitney Peak, known for her parts in Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game and Apple TV’s Home Before Dark, plays Zoya Lott.
Emily Alyn Lind portrays Audrey Hope, who could be compared to the original show’s Blair, as she’s a wealthy student with a designer mother.
Fans think Savannah Smith’s character Monet de Haan could be the new Serena thanks to her It-girl energy.
Gossip Girl began in the US on HBO Max on July 8. It will be available on BBC iPlayer later this year.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us , calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
MORE : Gossip Girl fans actually ‘prefer’ HBO reboot to original: ‘We are truly witnessing a moment in history’
MORE : Gossip Girl reboot: Release date, cast, and how to watch in the UK