The two stars appeared on the hit show Gossip Girl (Picture: WireImage)
Penn Badgley revealed that his relationship with his former Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively saved him from experimenting with drugs and alcohol.
The You frontman, 36, starred in the hit US drama alongside the 35-year-old actress and the duo dated from 2007 to 2010.
Blake is now married to Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds and Penn is married to singer Domino Kirke.
Reflecting on how he dealt with fame on the programme, the Dan Humphrey actor told Variety: ‘To be honest, I never struggled with substance.’
‘Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road.’
Penn recently revealed the reason why he toned down the sex scenes in the latest season of Netflix’s You – which stars Tilly Keeper and Lukas Gage.
Blake and Penn dated for three years (Picture: REX)
The actor graces the latest issue of Variety (Picture: Variety)
‘I asked Sera Gamble, the creator, “can I just do no more intimacy scenes?”’ he said.
‘This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show.
‘I don’t think I had ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, do I want to put myself back in a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?’ he added while speaking on his podcast Podcrushed.
Penn is married to singer Domino Kirke (Picture: Getty)
Penn, who shares one child with Domino, also said that he wanted to focus on his family over romantic roles.
‘Like, fidelity, in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is important to me. And it just got to that point where I don’t want to do that,’ he shared.
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However, understanding that downgrading Joe’s lust ‘from 100 to zero’ wouldn’t be authentic to the show.
‘I signed this contract, I signed up for this show, I know what I did. You can’t take this aspect out of the DNA of the concept,’ he added.
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The two starred on the hit show Gossip Girl.
