Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan told Elle UK magazine that she once encountered a drunken fan of the Netflix hit in the bathroom. The inebriated woman began openly talking about Mr. Coughlan’s body in front of her, much to the actor’s dismay. Coughlan plays Penelope in the Netflix series, and the show’s third season focuses on her love story with Colin Bridgerton.
“What was really weird was when I was filming that series, I was working out a lot because I felt like I had to, so I lost a lot of weight. I was probably a size 10, and one of the corsets was a size 8,” Coughlan told Elle about Season 3.
“I remember one time I was in the bathroom with a really drunk girl saying something like, ‘I loved[Bridgerton]because of your body,’ and she started talking about my body, and I was like, ‘I want to die,'” she continued. I hate this…’ It’s really hard to work on something for months of your life, not even see your family, and really give of yourself, and in the end it’s about what you look like – it’s so boring.
Coughlan has regularly spoken out against body shamers during her time on “Bridgerton,” which recently streamed Season 4. In a 2022 Instagram post, she directly called out, “If you have an opinion about my body, please don’t share it with me…It’s really hard to bear the weight of the thousands of opinions about your appearance that are sent directly to you every day.”
She later told the Irish Times: “All I care about is the work. Bodies change and if you lose weight or gain weight or whatever, it doesn’t matter to anyone. All I care about is giving a good performance and being recognized for it.”
Coughlan told Stylist in 2024, during the release of Bridgerton Season 3, that she was adamant about being “completely naked” in sex scenes, in direct response to trolls slamming her weight online. Coughlan worked closely with “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzie Talbot on set.
“I specifically asked for certain lines and moments to be included,” Coughlan said. “There’s a scene where I get very naked in front of the camera, and it was my idea and my choice. It felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to all the conversations surrounding my body. It was incredibly empowering. In that moment, I felt beautiful, and I thought, ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how hot I looked!'”
To read Coughlan’s cover in full, visit Elle’s website.
