‘You’ Star Penn Badgley Responds After Fan Asks Him to ‘Kidnap’ Them

You star Penn Badgley recently responded to a who fan jokingly asked him to “kidnap” them, and his comment might surprise some. Over on Twitter, Badgley shared the fan tweet and replied, “[I don’t know] why but when ‘kidnap me’ is prefaced by ‘ayoooo’ it has a completely different ring to it and I’m not mad.” Badgley’s response is just slightly different than how he’s reacted to similar comments in the past, as he’s always been adamant that his character, Joe Goldberg, is not someone to be admired.

“I think Joe reveals the unsettling logic that actually a lot of us are following-in the worst way-on social media,” Badgley said during a past press event for the series. “But, then I think in the best way it is a tool and there’s nothing inherently wrong about that tool at all. In fact, I see really admire people like Shay, who have an authentic relationship where it’s like, fluent. See me when I try to do something on social media? It’s pathetic.”

@PennBadgley ayoooo kidnap me 😮‍💨

— bri ☾ (@sourrodrighoe) October 19, 2021

In You, Badgley plays Joe Goldberg, a man with a dark past and an obsessive personality. In Season 3 of the drama-thriller, which just debuted on Netflix, Joe and his wife Love (Victoria Pedretti) find themselves navigating suburban life with their new baby, Henry. Things very quickly take a sinister turn, leading the complicated couple down a path that forced them to fight for their marriage.

Speaking to InStyle in a recent interview, Badgley spoke candidly about how he feels about his character, saying, “I am the least forgiving person in the world with Joe.” He then went on to compare Joe to “a person with deep narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy.” Badgley added, “He’s clearly, to me, not a good husband. He’s not a good father, but the ways that he’s trying, I think are universal. His fear is probably pretty universal, [but] how he goes about responding to all that is so terrible, obviously.”

Badgley later offered an interesting take on Joe, saying that he believes “the audience actually brings a lot to him.” He then added that Joe’s perceived “emotional sobriety” does not actually exist. “I don’t see how a person like him could be expected to have any emotional sobriety, any behavior that would be anything other than completely and utterly self-serving,” he said. “To me, he’s just sort of pandering to the audience in his mind when he says these things.” You Seasons 1 through 3 are now streaming on Netflix.