Nicola Coughlan says drunk ‘Bridgerton’ fan mentioned her body weight
‘Bridgerton’ star Nicola Coughlan said Elle UK magazine that she was once confronted in a bathroom by a drunken fan of the Netflix hit. The drunk woman then openly discussed Coughlan’s body while standing directly in front of her, much to the actor’s dismay. Coughlan plays Penelope in the Netflix series, with the show’s third season focusing on her love story with Colin Bridgerton.
“You know what was really crazy, when I was shooting that series, I was working out a lot because I knew I had to, so I had 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. “And then people were talking about how I was plus size and I was like, ‘How fucked are we that I’m the biggest woman you want to see on screen?'”
“I remember this really drunk girl once talking to me in the bathroom and saying, ‘I loved it [“Bridgerton”] because of your body,” she continued. “And she started talking about my body, and I was like, ‘I want to die.’ I hate this so much…’ It’s really hard when you work on something for months, you don’t see your family, you really put in the effort and then it comes down to how you look – it’s so damn boring.”
Coughlan has frequently spoken out against body shamers during her run on “Bridgerton,” which recently streamed its fourth season. She called them out directly in a 2022 Instagram post which read: “If you have an opinion about my body, please don’t share it with me… It’s really hard to bear the weight of thousands of opinions about how you look sent directly to you every day.”
She later told the Irish times: “All I care about is the work. Bodies change, if I lose weight or gain weight or if I do something it’s no one’s business, all I care about is acting well and being judged for it.”
Coughlan told Stylist in 2024, during the release of “Bridgerton” Season 3, she was adamant about going “very naked” for a sex scene as a direct response to the trolls who were bashing her weight online. Coughlan worked closely on site with “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot.
“I specifically asked for certain lines and moments to be included,” Coughlan said. “There’s one scene where I’m very naked in front of the camera, and that was my idea, my choice. It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ in all the conversation around my body; it was incredibly empowering. I felt beautiful in that moment and I thought, ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back at this and remember how damn hot I looked!'”
Go to Elle’s website to read Coughlan’s cover in its entirety.
