Featured Image Credit: Mike Marsland / Getty Images
Topics: Netflix, Film and TV, Celebrity
Phoebe Tonks
Topics: Netflix, Film and TV, Celebrity
Nicole Coughlan, the star of Netflix smash hit Bridgerton, has shared her candid thoughts on being labelled a body positivity icon - and to be frank, ‘it pisses her off.’
Throughout her career so far, which includes memorable performances in Derry Girls, Barbie and Big Mood, Coughlan has proudly shared her interests in everything from mental health and ADHD awareness, right through to supporting the trans community and advocating to end the war in Gaza.
Yet one area she admits she has ‘no interest’ is the subject of body positivity.
It all stems from a label that was thrust upon Coughlan during Bridgerton’s first season back in 2020, when instead of charming audiences with her performance of Penelope Featherington, all anyone seemed to do, was focus on her body size - even going so far as to label her a plus-size model.
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“You know what was really bizarre was, when I was shooting that series, I was exercising a lot because I knew I had to, so I had lost a bunch of weight — I was probably a size 10 and one of the corsets was a size 8,” Coughlan admitted in the April issue of Elle UK.
“And then people talked about how I was plus size, and I was like, ‘How f---ed are we that I am the biggest woman you want to see on screen?”
’Coughlan, 39, then went on to recall a particularly frustrating encounter with a fan, who while trying to praise her, left her ‘wanting to die’.
“I remember this really drunk girl once talking to me in a bathroom being like, ‘I loved [Bridgerton] because of your body.’ And 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 and months of your life, you don’t see your family, you really dedicate yourself and then it comes down to what you look like — it’s so f---ing boring.”
Yet even despite her frustrations, fans continued to make assumptions about her and continue to remark on her body, something which prompted Coughlan to directly ask her fans and followers to please stop back in 2022.
"If you have an opinion about my body please, please don't share it with me," she wrote in a now-deleted Instagram post. "It's really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.”
While some listened to her request, not everyone complied, which meant Coughlan was forced to resort to some good old fashioned reverse psychology to try and get the comments to stop.
"The thing I say sometimes that pisses people off is I have no interest in body positivity,” Coughlan told the outlet.“When I was a kid growing up, I never thought about that. I didn’t look at actors and think about their bodies. So, I actually don’t care. There’s a lot of things I’m passionate about, it’s not one of them… That’s someone else’s thing. It’s not mine.’”