Penn Badgley Threw Shade At 'You' Fans After Hitting 1 Million Followers On IG
If you're beyond fascinated with the Lifetime thriller series You, you are definitely not alone. Based on the 2014 Caroline Kepnes novel of the same name, You is about Joe Goldberg, an obsessed stalker who finds a way to make his victim fall in love with him — even if he has to literally kill to get his way. Fittingly played by Gossip Girl alum Penn Badgley, the actor steals the show, and fans have clearly taken note. But Penn Badgley's reaction to hitting a million followers on Instagram is hilarious and oh-so-shady, making sure that fans of You will feel that burn.
Badgley posted a video to Instagram on Monday, Jan. 14. His caption read, "Woke up like this #nofilter thx 4 followinggggggg :)," while also tagging the show's Instagram account, @younetflix.
"Good morning from Manila," Badgley says in the video to his fans, with a hairstyle that is definitive proof that he definitely just woke up.
"I wake up to find — I never thought I'd see the day — but I wake up to find I have a million followers," he continued, as he's pretending to hold back tears of joy. But then sh*t starts getting hilariously real.
"I don't know what to say... because all it took was for me to start murdering people, yo, get the eff outta here!"
Did you feel that, world? That's the feeling of Penn Badgley giving you a hard dose of reality.
And you have to hand it to him: Increasing your fan base simply by playing a murderous stalker is kind of twisted, no? Regardless, you should watch Badgley's flawless 20-second performance that is essentially trolling all of his fans:
I mean, dude does have a point.
The character he portrays is essentially a monster (albeit an absurdly good-looking one), and Badgley has been taking to social media to respond to any fans who have openly romanticized his Joe Goldberg character.
For instance, one fan took to Twitter to express how she doesn't know what it is about Badgley and his role in You, but she's really feeling it. "Said this already but @PennBadgley is breaking my heart once again as Joe. What is it about him?" the fan tweeted. And yep, our dude responded in the most brutally honest way possible.
"A: He is a murderer," and he's ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
But it didn't just stop there. Badgley has been tweeting a ton of reactions, proving he's not just talented, but witty AF (and so, so deserving of a million followers because of it, if you ask me):
Penn Badgley is slaying life with his retorts, and I don't hate it.
Badgley's jokes aside, there are some pretty heavy similarities between the character of Joe Goldberg and Badgley's iconic character Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl, but it's obvious that the former of the two goes a step (or an entire staircase) too far with his obsession with the woman he stalks, Beck, played by Elizabeth Lail.
So look, while he may not have gotten up to a million followers in the... healthiest way possible, let's all just be happy that Badgley has found even more fans of his incredibly good acting — even if it takes acting like a complete stalker to get there, I guess.
Way to go, Penn! Might I suggest you take on a role next time that's a bit more light-hearted? Totally up to you.
