Lately, Blake Lively’s contentious interviews while promoting her most recent movie, It Ends With Us, have drawn criticism from both fans and online users. However, Lively has given acrimonious responses to reporters before. During a 2008 exclusive with New York Magazine, the Gossip Girl star allegedly lost her cool when a query pried into her personal life involving co-star and then-boyfriend Penn Badgley. As per Page Six, while discussing a kissing scene with actor Alan Arkin for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, she said, “He’s a little bit of an upgrade from Chace [Crawford] and Penn [Badgley]. So I’m looking forward to that.” This prompted journalists Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovzar to question her equation with Badgley, which is when she snapped, “I thought this was New York magazine. I thought you were supposed to be classy.”

The former pair dated from 2007 to 2010, at the height of their popularity due to the hit drama series, Gossip Girl. In a 2023 interview with Variety, Badgley stated that his relationship with Lively was the only reason people noticed him. “Beyond our relationship, I don’t think anybody was going to be interested in me publicly,” he said.“Blake didn’t drink, and I think our relationship in some ways saved me from forcing myself to go down that road,” he added while praising his ex for saving his life from addiction.

However, according to Distractify, in a 2008 interview, the Cafe Society actress had somewhat dismissed their relationship. “Everybody always tries to dig into your personal life or create things that aren’t there. It’s silly,” she said. “Any male friend is obviously a ‘romance alert’ [for the media], but I’ve always been friends with boys my whole life.” “[I] just try not to listen to what people say,” she continued. “At least for me, it’s important — because I’m so close with my family and my friends — to keep core people around me that know the truth about everything.”

“I don’t comment on my relationships. My anonymity is something I treasure. Wanting to be an actor and wanting to be famous are different,” Lively had said during another interview according to People. In October 2010, a representative for both stars confirmed their break-up. Gossip Girl executive producer Joshua Safran stated years later, “I found out on the set of the season 2 finale that Blake and Penn had broken up months before,” he told Vanity Fair in 2017.

“They kept the breakup hidden from the crew, which you could never do now. I don’t even know how they did it. They kept it from everybody, which is a testament to how good they are as actors. Because they did not want their personal drama to relate to the show.” In September 2023 while appearing on an episode of Podcrushed podcast, Badgley candidly spoke about his break-up. “From my memory, I’m pretty sure we were exes for nearly half of the run of the entire series,” he said, “[The show] lasted for nearly six years, and I don’t think we were together longer than two? Something like that.”