Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley debuts new look

Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here. And I have some big news: Penn Badgley has a brand new look.

The Gossip Girl actor showed off his altered appearance during a performance with his band, Mothxr, at Miami’s Art Basel on Monday night, where they performed new songs like “Touch,” “She Can’t Tell,” and “Victim.” Gone are Badgley’s brown curls, which have been replaced with an edgy bleach-blonde mohawk and a scruffy beard that are a far cry from the Brooklyn chic look he sported as Dan Humphrey on the CW show.

Badgley recently admitted in an interview with the Huffington Post that part of leaving his Gossip Girl days behind meant changing his look. “The whole Gossip Girl thing, that is an experience unto itself that any person needs to decompress from, and I’ve been doing that. That’s why I look like this,” he said back in March 2016, before he had even gone blonde.

Badgley’s focus has shifted to music since Gossip Girl wrapped in 2012. “This was always an intention of mine…It’s not forced,” he told the Huffington Post, referring to his music career. “It’s not something that I’ve been incredibly conscious or precious or deliberate about. It was obviously going to happen.”