Crawford acknowledged that guest stars and people around the production were a different matter.
“There’s a lot of guest stars and people in the orbit of the show that you’d meet through other friends even,” he explained. “And I remember that was a way to meet people.”
Why the show’s wider circle mattered
Crawford has hinted at this before. During a 2024 appearance on Call Her Daddy, he said on-set relationships were not exactly shocking, given the age of the cast and the amount of time everyone spent together.
“I would say those things are inevitable,” Crawford said. “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.”
He said filming meant being on set for “like 12-14 hours a day,” surrounded by “some pretty interesting people from all walks of life.” In other words, the romantic part was not necessarily the scripted glamour. It was the waiting, the social overlap, and the strange little community that forms when a young cast is working constantly.
Crawford compared the experience to college, saying he had a strong social life in New York while making the series.
“There’s a lot of actors and people coming onto the show, over the years,” he said. “And I was fortunate enough to have in the city a really good friend group. And everyone else has their little friend group.”
Which Gossip Girl romances were public?
While Crawford says he did not date anyone from the main cast, several of his costars did have public relationships during or around the show’s run.
The known pairings included:
- Blake Lively and Penn Badgley
- Jessica Szohr and Ed Westwick
- Leighton Meester and Sebastian Stan
Those relationships helped fuel the long-running fascination with the show’s behind-the-scenes world. The series already blurred fashion, fame and young adulthood on screen, so viewers naturally wondered where performance ended and real life began. Sometimes the answer was: please consult a publicist. Sometimes it was simpler.
Crawford also suggested there were things he still has not shared. When asked whether he has kept secrets about other people who found romance on set, he said “absolutely.”
That may be the most Gossip Girl answer available: a denial, a clarification and a locked drawer all at once.
Why fans still ask about it
The continued interest makes sense. Gossip Girl was built around intimacy, status and secrets, and its young cast became famous while playing characters whose lives were designed to look dangerously intertwined. For fans, the off-screen dynamics became part of the show’s mythology.
Crawford’s latest comments do not rewrite that history so much as tidy up one piece of it. He says he did not date the main cast members. He does say the broader world of guest actors, friends and long production days made connections possible.
That is not quite scandalous, but it is human. And for a show that sold fantasy with a straight face, the plain version is probably more believable anyway.
