Chace Crawford says he never dated any of his costars on Gossip Girl, even as he acknowledged that romances and hookups did happen around the set. On the May 11 episode of Armchair Expert, the 40-year-old actor drew a line between the core cast and the wider circle of guest stars and friends who passed through the CW drama during its run from 2007 to 2012.
“Yeah, there’s things that happen or connections that happen,” Crawford said, before adding, “I never dated anyone on the show.” He did say he hooked up with guest stars, describing that as part of the social world around the series. “There’s a lot of guest stars and people in the orbit of the show that you’d meet through other friends even,” he said, adding, “And I remember that was a way to meet people.”
The comments land in the middle of long-running fan speculation about who dated whom behind the scenes on one of television’s most closely watched young-star ensembles. Gossip Girl featured Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Ed Westwick and Taylor Momsen, along with Michelle Trachtenberg, Sebastian Stan and Jessica Szohr. Several of those relationships were public: Lively and Badgley dated, Szohr and Westwick dated, and Meester and Stan dated.
Crawford’s latest remarks also sharpen what he hinted at in 2024, when he suggested on Call Her Daddy that he had gotten involved with someone from the Gossip Girl world. At the time, he said that when you are in your 20s, those kinds of things are inevitable. On Monday, he was more specific about the atmosphere that made it happen. “When you’re in your 20s...the thing is you’re on these things—people probably think it’s these sexy scenes or whatever, that’s like the worst part of it, with 60 people watching. It’s the downtime. You’re doing this show, you’re on set for like 12-14 hours a day and usually there’s some pretty interesting people from all walks of life,” he said.
He added that there were “a lot of actors and people coming onto the show, over the years,” and said he had “a really good friend group” in the city, while “everyone else has their little friend group.” That broader social web, he said, is where people met outside the immediate cast. “So you meet people in that wider circle, it’s not just that tiny little circle,” Crawford said. “There’s a lot of people involved.”
The friction in his account is simple enough: he denies dating anyone on the show, but he did not deny that the set’s orbit produced relationships. He said he has “absolutely” kept secrets about other people who found romance there, which is a reminder that the answer to who dated whom on Gossip Girl has always been partly public and partly protected by the people who lived it.
