Penn Badgley is sharing candid thoughts about his self-image. The You actor recently shared insights about his early career as a child performer and his challenging experience with what he termed “body dysmorphia.”
“I know that I hated my body,” Penn told The Guardian in an interview published April 16, “and simply wanted a different one.”
His struggle with body dysmorphia—a mental health condition where individuals fixate on perceived flaws or defects in their appearance, according to Mayo Clinic—intensified due to the isolation following his parents’ separation, leading to weight gain. The 38-year-old mentioned that this physical transformation had an impact on his professional mindset.
“There was just a period where, coming out of depression and isolation,” Penn continued, “I was jumping wilfully into, but also being thrust into, this world where the more conventionally beautiful I seemed, the more successful I might be, the more value I might have.”
He added, “There’s no way to get past the superficiality of this work, and if you recognize that, you can’t help but recognize the superficiality of our culture, because of the way it rewards this work.”
The Gossip Girl alumnus reflected on how the CW series—which aired from 2007 to 2012 and featured Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, and Chace Crawford—contributed to society’s unhealthy obsession with appearances.
“What was that show other than aesthetic? That was its thing—the way we all looked,” he said. “I didn’t particularly love the superficial celebrity aspect of the way I was perceived.”
Despite these challenging beauty standards, Penn—who parents son James, 4, and is stepfather to Cassius, 15, alongside expecting wife Domino Kirke, 40—attributes his endurance in the entertainment industry to his spiritual practice.
“That is what allowed me to persevere through the disillusionment, all the things I’d been grappling with,” he explained, “and then come back to it all, but with hopefully some kind of inner transformation.”
Regarding his current priorities? Penn emphasized that he’s focusing on “the simple stuff of life, like having a family, meaningful relationships with my friends.”
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