Just because Penn Badgley took a two-year acting hiatus following his stint as Daniel Humphrey on Gossip Girl, doesn’t mean the A-lister’s net worth took too much of a hit. After all, starring in a beloved teenage drama for half a decade certainly comes with it monetary advantages.
So much so, that as of 2019, the 33-year-old’s estimated net worth is a whopping $8 million. Finally, Lonely Boy has the cash to keep up with Serena van der Woodsen. All jokes aside, Penn’s millions come from more than just Gossip Girl. With that, we decided to break down some of his more notable projects over the years.
First up, Penn’s new Netflix series, You. If you have yet to catch season 1 … you should really hop on that. Basically, he plays a sociopath named Joe Goldberg who works in a book shop on the — wait for it — Upper East Side of Manhattan. Given Penn’s devilishly good looks and the fact that everyone loves a good thriller these days, the show got picked up for another season slated to air sometime before the end of the year.
If you have watched season 1 and need something to tide you over in the meantime, check out the novel of the same name written by Caroline Kepnes. You can also spoil season 2 by reading her sequel, Hidden Bodies.
OK, back to Penn, in addition to acting, he’s also a musician! In 2012, he joined a band called MOTHXR and eventually, what started off as a fun hobby, turned into a bona fide career in the entertainment industry. Three years later, the band was signed by a record label and started touring — internationally!
“We have to be and are grateful for the fans that Gossip Girl might bring in. In the beginning, there was probably a predominant thing there, depending on the city. If we were in some random place and all we were getting were the people I was tweeting at, OK, fine, great,” Penn told Cosmopolitan in 2016 of his band’s fanbase.
“Sometimes we’ll almost sell out a little club that way. And then sometimes, when we play in [a place] like Brooklyn, there’s a lot of music listeners there, a lot of mature, smart music heads. Not that Gossip Girl fans aren’t, but there’s obviously a dichotomy and a dynamic. I think increasingly, our audience reflects the music, which is actually diverse and actually musical.”
Humble and multitalented? We stan. Penn Badgley deserves all his millions and then some! We can’t wait to see what the future has in store for his career.