Penn Badgley’s wife Domino Kirke hits back at fans after husband refuses to film sex scenes

Domino Kirke has shared a poingnant message to fans who continue to blame her for her husband Penn Badgley's decision to no longer film sex scenes.

It comes three years after You star Badgley asked producers to significantly reduce the number of raunchy scenes in season four of the Netflix hit, after deciding he no longer wanted to partake in intimate scenes.

In February 2023, he explained on his podcast, Podcrushed, that the decision had come from him questioning the direction his career was going in, leading him to ask: "Do I want to put myself back on a career path where I'm always the romantic lead?"

He went on to explain, 'fidelity in every relationship, especially in a marriage, is important to me,' referring to wife Kirke, who he married in 2017.

Several weeks later, Badgley suggested his comments had been 'blown out of proportion,' telling GQ: "It was sort of like the culture inherent to the production of all movies, but particularly those scenes. It’s like, look, we know that Hollywood has had a history of flagrant exploitation and abuse."

Three years have now passed since the sex scene saga, but as it turns out, 42-year-old Kirke, who works as a doula, is still plagued with messages regarding her husband's career move.

"So I continue to get DMs about this thing that happened about three years ago," she said in a video posted to Instagram.

Kirke explained how Badgley's decision was 'really major in his industry because that’s the thing they like you to do the most, and the characters that my husband has played over the years, people have come to expect that he will continue to play that guy.'

She went on to say she had been 'really happy' and 'super proud' of her husband for making that decision, adding that in her career as a doula she strives to empower people to make their own decisions, noting that she's 'not just Penn Badgley's wife.'

"So, yeah, I want to say to those of you who still DM me about my husband deciding to do this for himself, and his mental health," Kirke concluded, "get over it."

In the caption, Kirke, who shares three children with Badgley, along with a fourth child from a previous relationship, delved further into the actor's desire to stop intimate scenes.

"The truth is, my husband decided to do this for his own mental health reason," she wrote, adding that he had been working as an actor 'since he was just 12 years old.'

"In the entertainment world, they call actors ‘puppets’ behind their backs, and it’s even more disturbing when they start out as child actors," she added.

"So finally, after years of trying, Penn decided to take a stand and let the world see him. And guess what, he hasn’t lost fans and he’s still getting hired."

Comparing the world of entertainment and her own career experience in the world of birthing, Kirke continued: "Entertainers, birth professionals, and caregivers bleed to create so much for others, and then they’re expected to go home and show up for their own lives and families as though nothing happened."