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'Bridgerton' star Nicola Coughlan's pleas for fans to stop commenting on her body

Many celebrities have been taking a stand on receiving fan commentary about their weight. Nicola's hits a bit differently.

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Bridgerton actor Nicola Coughlan in 2021.

The internet, for all its many wondrous things, can also be a cesspool of body-shaming, both outright and insidious. We see this most persistently perhaps with celebrities, who take on the role of dissection subjects regarding their weight. Whether being deemed “too thin” or “too fat,” comments about a public figure’s weight seems acceptable to some, simply because they signed up to be in the spotlight. But our better judgment knows this is not the case.

Nicola Coughlan, who plays the plot pivotal role of Penelope Featherington on the hit Netflix show “Bridgerton,” is no stranger to being inundated with this type of harmful, completely unnecessary feedback from fans.

So much so, that she recently posted her own truly heartfelt plea to her Instagram, asking for people to stop commenting on her body. Though we've seen multiple celebrities justifiably speak out against this, it’s hard not to be moved by her words in a whole new way.

Coughlan began her post with both civility and directness. “Hello! So just a thing- if you have an opinion about my body please, please don’t share it with me.”

This was apparently after receiving messages every single day following her breakout role.

She continued:

“Most people are being nice and not trying to be offensive but I am just one real life human being and it’s really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.”

Her approach reminds us of the very real people we are often damaging through projections of outdated beauty standards and downright unfounded opinions.

“Yellowjackets” star Melanie Lynskey had also recently been invaded by an influx of supposedly well-intentioned spectators since the hugely successful Showtime series premiered.


“Most egregious are the ‘I care about her health!!’ people,” Lynskey tweeted. “You don’t see me on my Peleton! You don’t see me running through the park with my child. Skinny does not always equal healthy.”

And of course, she’s not wrong. Despite our general assumptions, being thin is no real indication of a person’s health. And in some cases, it can reveal a risk for certain diseases. Even the formerly gold standard of measuring a healthy weight, the BMI, aka body mass index, is considered flawed today by experts.

Clearly, the only weight needing to be shed is our truly unhealthy relationship with outdated body expectations.

Coughlan knows that being a public figure often invites a public examination. “If you have an opinion about me that’s ok, I understand I’m on TV and that people will have things to think and say,” she wrote, with the caveat, “but I beg you not to send it to me directly.”

Certainly, Coughlan shouldn’t have to resort to begging. But here we are. And maybe this is how the message needs to be heard. When it’s so easy to leave thoughtless or downright toxic messages on social media, we need to be reminded how it affects the hearts of real people on the receiving end. Empathy online is just as important as it is IRL.

That’s what makes her plea a masterclass in grace. She speaks out without anger or accusation, though she could. Instead she comes from a place of compassion.

Coughlan ended her post by saying, “anyways here’s a pic of me in my hotel in NY about to go to SNL, it’s unrelated to this post but delighted with my hair in it.”


Even in a battle for boundaries, Coughlan’s never one to refrain from having a sense of humor (she did also star in the hilarious “Derry Girls”, after all). And, she wasn’t wrong about the hair.

Reading Coughlan’s post, I can’t help but wonder, if she was able to treat perfect strangers with so much respect and kindness, can we not return the favor?


This article originally appeared on 1.31.22

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I'm fat. I'm choosing to stay fat. Here's why.

I'm fat.

The kind of fat I am depends on what side of fat you're looking at me from. If you're a thin person, I probably seem very fat. If you're a very fat person, I might seem average to you. To me, I am fat.

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I've been all different sizes. I've been bigger than I am now. I've been smaller than I was in high school. I've been everything in between. Right now I am fat; I don't love it. Because I know what it's like to be smaller, I know that it feels better than I do now. But right now, I'm also happy — not with my body but with my life.

If you're a thin person who has always been thin (or you're a formerly fat person who worked your ass off to be thin), you're probably thinking something like "if you're more comfortable smaller, why not work hard to be smaller?" If you're a fat person, you might be thinking "me, too" or, alternatively, "there are ways to feel good without being smaller."

You're both right. Also, I already know both of those things.

I've chosen different paths to wellness with my body. I have worked to lose weight in a safe and healthy way and been fulfilled and proud of that. I've also eaten cake with reckless abandon and not cared about the upward movement of the scale needle. I have been obsessed with weight loss. I've lived with and recovered from an eating disorder. I've been miserably fat. I've been miserably thin. I've been average — neither fat nor thin nor miserable.

What I am now is the product of a lot of years of self-loathing, a few years of self-loving, and 43 years of being a human being. What I am now is OK.

For most of my life, I have believed that I only needed to accomplish X to be fulfilled.

X might be being thin or having money; it might mean being married or divorced, living in a home or traveling abroad. I have accomplished many of the X's, and I have been proud of those accomplishments. But ultimately, they have never made me happier in my life. I believe now that you are about as happy as you make up your mind to be.

I think it's true: There is a threshold past which you just can't get happier. If you have food and clothing and your other basic needs met, the rest of the stuff isn't paramount to your happiness; it's just accoutrement.

I thought that being thin was the answer to my happiness, but it wasn't. It was the answer to some things — more attention, a wider range of clothing options, fewer sideways glances from my grandmother over the gravy boat — but there were many things being thin couldn't do. Making me happy was one of them.

I know from experience that my weight is almost irrelevant to my happiness. So I am choosing to stay fat.

I could change my body, but I don't want to right now. The reasons I am choosing not to make any changes are both simple and complicated. I have plantar fasciitis, and I don't feel like walking. Walking is an easy way to feel better in your body, but my foot hurts, therefore walking hurts. Yoga does not hurt, so I'm doing that. Walking might result in weight change, but I'm not really thinking about that right now. Instead, I'm focused on healing my foot.

Overall, though, my health is excellent. There are no pressing physiological issues. My blood pressure is great; my cholesterol is fine. I have no compelling health risks motivating me to change my body.

My mental health is stable. I'm focused on my root health. I'm working on healing my body from the inside, using a combination of spiritual, mental, and physical changes. I am not working on changing my physical body because ultimately my physical body, while important, is less important than all of the other things I'm working on.

My body doesn't prevent me from doing the things I want to do.

I can ride my bike, do yoga, chase my kids, and run up and down a mountain and along the beach. So any attempt at weight loss, right now anyway, would be rooted in aesthetics, and the expectation for me to be aesthetically pleasing is one that I won't surrender to because being beautiful isn't that important to me.

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We've been taught to value pretty above all of the other things we can be and are: smart, funny, generous, compassionate, kind, caring. But I am not young, and I am not a fool. I know two things: Beauty is fleeting, and the kind of people who care if I'm beautiful are not the people I care to be around.

For all the work women (mostly) do to achieve and sustain our beauty, our bodies will remain in flux. The thing you try to make beautiful now will sag next year. I cannot prevent the varicose veins, the wrinkles, the stretch marks. I will not waste my time trying. And if my partner one day told me that he thought I wasn't beautiful and was no longer interested in me, I would have to tell my partner to get screwed. I don't want to be with someone who values beauty above my intellect or my kindness.

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Someone emailed me recently and said she'd read something I wrote a few years ago about being fat.

She wanted to know if I was still "fat and happy." She wanted to know how to let go of the need to feel thin but also find joy. She wanted to know how I found peace in my body. I don't email everyone back, but I emailed her back because I had something to say I thought she would find valuable and that I needed to hear, too. The answer isn't that I found peace in my body — it's that I found peace in my life. Once I located that peace, I realized that the turmoil I felt around my body wasn't stronger than the joy I found in everything else.

This story originally appeared on Ravishly and is reprinted here with permission. More from Ravishly:

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John Boyega has the most glass-half-full way of dealing with critics.

John Boyega wants to hear your criticism loud and clear.

No, really.

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for SBIFF.

In a recent interview with Mashable, the 26-year-old "Star Wars" actor explained how he turns lemons into lemonade after spotting criticism directed at him on Facebook and Twitter.

"I feel like for me to get any type of criticism, I would have had to work to a certain point," he said, smiling. "I would have had to gain success for someone to say 'I didn't like 'Star Wars.'"

He continued:

"What I fixate on is 'Wait a second. Wait. I'm in 'Star Wars'? I think it's brilliant! These are the comments that every actor should hope to get. It means you're doing well. You're doing something."

Photo by Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images for Walt Disney Studio.

^ A live look at Boyega laughing off the haters. 😂

Boyega doesn't welcome all criticism with open arms, though. And for good reason.

Amid the buzz over 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," a certain segment of the sci-fi series' fans — (cough, cough) the racists — were upset that Boyega was cast as a Stormtrooper.

Stormtroopers apparently shouldn't be black.

Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney.

To those critics, Boyega said, "Get used to it."

"I’m in the movie, what are you going to do about it?" the actor told V Magazine. "You either enjoy it or you don’t. I’m not saying get used to the future, but what is already happening. People of color and women are increasingly being shown on-screen."

Boyega's new comments on criticism is something we can all keep in mind.

We may not all be movie stars, but most of us have our critics.

Someone isn't a fan of your artwork in the new exhibit? You were talented enough to get it featured. A hater pokes fun at you for finishing last in the 5K? You put in the work to cross that finish line.

Do as Boyega does, and let the trolls remind you to pat yourself on the back.

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Pink's beautiful, unexpected response when her daughter was feeling 'ugly.'

If you follow Pink at all, you know she's a pretty awesome mom.

Her Instagram account is filled with adorable pics of her with her two young kids. In these posts, Pink is down to earth, honest, and best of all, has a great sense of humor about the whole parenting journey:

But even Pink has challenging moments as a parent.

In her speech at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, Pink shared an amazing and powerful story about — and for — her daughter.

After winning the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, Pink took the stage and stepped to the mic. It was clear she had something important on her mind.

"Recently I was driving my daughter to school and she said to me, out of the blue, 'Momma ... I'm the ugliest girl I know,'" Pink recalled. "'I look like a boy with long hair.'"

Hearing your child being hard on themselves is a heartbreaking moment for any parent. But if you think Pink just blurted out, "OMG, what? Baby, you are so pretty!" well... you don't know Pink.

"I went home and I made a PowerPoint presentation for her," Pink said.

"And in that presentation were androgynous rockstars and artists that lived their truth," she added. "[People] who are probably made fun of every day of their life and carry on and wave their flag and inspire the rest of us."

She listed a handful of world-changing talents, like Michael Jackson and Elton John, like Pink herself, who never let anyone's expectations or opinions hold them back. Proving her point even further, Pink, her daughter, and her husband Carey Hart all showed up at the VMAs last night wearing matching suits.

Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images.

On stage, Pink shared this monumental moment of parenting clarity: Yes, most kids will battle with self-image and self-esteem at some point, and no, of course, they should never be made to feel like they are ugly or that their bodies are wrong in any way.

BUT — in our rush to reassure our kids that they are beautiful or handsome or pretty or cute, we should never forget that these are moments when we can teach them that there are greater things to aspire to than traditional standards of beauty ... because beauty is subjective.

"Baby girl, we don't change," Pink said to thundering applause. "We help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty."

Damn straight, Pink. Damn straight.

You can watch the full speech in the video below:

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