Gossip Girl Brilliantly Hinted at Her True Identity in the First Episode (And You Totally Missed It)

gossip Girl waited until the final episode to reveal the title character’s identity, but looking back, the series brilliantly hinted at this controversial reveal in the first episode. The 2000s was a big decade for teen drama TV shows, and one of the most popular is gossip Girlcreated by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. Based on the series of novels of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar, gossip Girl took viewers to New York’s Upper East Side to follow a group of privileged teenagers at a prestigious high school.

Leading this group were best friends Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), but in addition to the many dramas with their families and in their circle of friends, their private lives were constantly exposed by a mysterious blogger known as “Gossip Girl”. Throughout the show, Serena and the rest tried to take down Gossip Girl and reveal her identity to no avail, and it wasn’t until the series finale that this was revealed – but in retrospect, there was a huge clue as to her identity in the very first gossip Girl episode.

Gossip Girl’s first episode subtly hinted at Dan’s big reveal

A big but subtle clue to Gossip Girl’s Dan Twist

What gossip Girl did was executed a blog in which she documented the lives of Manhattan’s elite and wealthy teenagers on the upper side. gossip Girl used tips from readers to spread gossip (of course) about these people, but she mainly focused on the lives of Serena, Blair, Dan (Penn Badgley), Nate (Chace Crawford), and Chuck (Ed Westwick). gossip Girl wasted no time introducing this character, what she did and the drama she could cause, and in the first episode of the series there is a clue that Dan is behind the blog.

As one pointed out TikTok user, in the first episode of gossip Girlthe camera shows the Gossip Girl website with the post about Serena’s return. The episode cuts directly to Dan in front of his laptop as the Gossip Girl voiceover says his now-famous quote “And who am I? That’s a secret I’ll never tell.” Knowing that Dan was the one who created the blog and the character of Gossip Girl gives a completely new perspective and meaning to that scene in episode 1, even if Dan wasn’t planned to be on Gossip Girl at the time.

The original plan was for Gossip Girl to be Eric van der Woodsen (Connor Paolo), Serena’s younger brother. However, Paolo was cast in another TV show and became a recurring character on gossip Girlwhich, along with viewers beginning to suspect he was Gossip Girl, led the writers to change the character’s identity. After considering several characters, including Nate, they decided on Dan as Gossip Girl.

Why Dan’s Gossip Girl Reveal Is Still Controversial

Dan being Gossip Girl still doesn’t make sense

The big reveal of Gossip Girl’s identity was controversial and continues to be a topic of debate among fans of the series. Dan made the big reveal in a chapter published in The spectatorand Despite knowing everything he did, Serena still chose to stay with him…and all his friends forgave him too. Not only is it problematic that Serena stayed with Dan after learning that he was responsible for ruining her life on many occasions, but it also doesn’t make sense that Dan would be Gossip Girl.

There are many moments throughout gossip Girl where Dan wasn’t near his computer or phone when Gossip Girl published a revealing post, and his sister Jen was brutally attacked by Gossip Girl on many occasions – and it was revealed that Jen always knew what Dan was doing. It is evident that Dan was not always intended to be gossip Girlbut this controversial revelation at least gave a completely new meaning to a brief scene from the first episode.

Source: TikTok.