The question of whether Blake Lively ever cheated on Penn Badgley refuses to stay buried, especially as resurfaced blind items and online rumors continue to sprinkle doubt. They dated from 2007 to 2010 while co-starring on Gossip Girl, and during those years, rumors claimed Lively was entangled with multiple co-stars and collaborators, from Ben Affleck to Ryan Reynolds. None of these claims was ever proven. Still, curiosity reignited when Badgley discussed fidelity years later.
In a 2023 NY Post interview, Badgley stated:
Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is really important to me. It just got to a point where I don’t want to do that.
Ergo, fact check: Badgley has never confirmed cheating rumors. He has only spoken respectfully about Lively and acknowledged her positive impact on him. So the cheating rumors remain speculation, not a verdict.
Penn Badgley Got Candid About the “Struggle” of Dating Blake Lively
Earlier this year, Penn Badgley explained how difficult it was to keep his identity separate from Dan Humphrey. Appearing on Call Her Daddy in April, he described the strain of dating Blake Lively while playing her on-screen partner. He said:
I mean, that’s a great question because it was the struggle.
Working nonstop blurred his sense of self. Fans began treating him like Dan, and he felt trapped inside the character’s shadow. He admitted lacking the emotional maturity in his early twenties to “differentiate” his own worth, adding:
What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me.
Badgley also shared that a difficult teenage relationship left lasting cracks, and childhood instability left him “starved for many kinds of intimacy”.
By his twenties, he’d already experienced two long relationships before meeting Domino Kirke, describing their bond as immediate and profound.
A Look Back at Penn Badgley and Blake Lively’s Relationship Timeline
Penn Badgley and Blake Lively split in 2010 but continued filming Gossip Girl without letting personal matters spill into their professional environment. He later praised her wedding news, calling himself “genuinely happy” for her (per US Magazine). In May 2013, he admitted he didn’t send a wedding gift and said their relationship was “good and bad” and “a learning experience.”
In 2015, he called Lively his best on-screen kiss and “maybe Blake after we broke up” his worst. That same month, he shared:
We haven’t spoken in a while… There’s an amicable silence.
In August 2017, Lively confessed producers encouraged cast members to date because “it fed their whole narrative.” In February 2023, Badgley confessed:
Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.
Lively married Ryan Reynolds in 2012 and grew her family to four children, while Badgley married Kirke in 2017. So did Blake Lively cheat? Based on what’s publicly known, the answer leans toward no. Drop your thoughts below. Keep an eye on FandomWire for more updates, more deep dives, and more relationship autopsies.
