There’s a level of show-biz bullshit that’s so profoundly dense it begs to be lit on fire. When you’re talking about Bridgerton, which turns Regency Romance into Current-Year preach-lit, the temptation is the more profound.

And now they’re trying to sell getting the actress naked as some kind of transgressive act, because she’s overweight. This demands mockery. Original in bold, my response in italic.

“Bridgerton” star Nicola Coughlan recently told the Los Angeles Times that she came to find shooting sex scenes with co-star Luke Newton in Season 3 to be liberating despite her initial nerves, saying: “By the end of the day, we were both lying under a blanket, not clothed, just chillin’. We were like, ‘This is why nudists do it.’”

Yeah, that’s totally why nudists do it.

Note the tone here. Initially, she was nervous about getting nekkid on camera with a guy, but later on, it’s going to be all Totally Her Idea, and it was Super Stunning and Brave.

Now she reveals in a profile published by Stylist (via Buzzfeed) that she was adamant about going “very naked” for a scene in “Bridgerton” Season 3 as a direct response to the trolls who slammed her weight online.

What, Stylist, you say? Buzzfeed, you say? The absolute bastions of journalistic integrity? That must mean this Totally Happened, and isn’t something the publicity department shoved in the actress’ mouth after the fact. She didn’t just love getting naked, she was ADAMANT about getting Double-Secret Super Naked.

Coughlan collaborated closely with “Bridgerton” intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot on her Season 3 sex scenes, saying: “You go, ‘Ok, what do I want to show? What don’t I want to show? What’s scripted, and what do I want to add?’”

“I actually lost skin! There might be a piece of my pancreas visible!”

For those not in the know, yes, “intimacy coordinators” are a thing, tasked with making bed-and-sex scenes less uncomfortable (and legally actionable) for the actors involved. I can’t swear that they’re a post-Me Too phenomenon, but that feels right. No idea if there are any intimacy coordinators on the casting couch or at late-night rendezvous at producers’ mansions.

“I specifically asked for certain lines and moments to be included,” Coughlan continued. “There’s one scene where I’m very naked on camera, and that was my idea, my choice.

“I was so excited about being EXPONENTIALLY, INFINITY-TIMES-A-GOOGLE naked! I love it so much! I have never been more proud of the work that I have done than I am right now, can’t you tell from my job-necessitated enthusiasm?“

It just felt like the biggest ‘fuck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering. I felt beautiful in the moment, and I thought: ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how fucking hot I looked!’”

Naked is Empowering, you guys. No, AMAZINGLY Empowering. I am Stunning and Brave. I am not participating in an elaborate trolling designed to remind people that the TV show I work on exists. There was totally a non-astroturfed conversation “surrounding” my body, and I got to Stick It to the Haterzzzz so hard. You Guys.

Coughlan has combated online trolls about her weight in the past. She directly called them out in a 2022 Instagram post that read: “If you have an opinion about my body please, please don’t share it with me…It’s really hard to take the weight of thousands of opinions on how you look being sent directly to you every day.”

This is the curse of the Internet. It gives you access to hordes of people online. Which sounds great, until you realize that it’s giving hordes of people online access to you. They won’t all be nice. Now, I could be harsh and say “you stuck your face in the beehive, honey”, but honestly, she has a point.

This girl is fat. She knows she’s fat. She’s not going to stop being fat anytime soon. You are not a bold truth-teller for telling a fat girl she’s fat. You are just Reverse Simping, the antipodal extreme from telling a beautiful Instagram girl she’s beautiful. Neither of them regard you as human. Go ride a bicycle or do something useful with your life. The Matrix is not weakened by anything you’re currently doing.

She later told the Irish Times: “All I care about is the work. Bodies change, if I lose weight or gain weight or I do anything it’s no one’s business, all I care about is doing good acting and being judged on that.”

She has to say this now, because when Adelle lost weight everyone got mad at her, because half of the reason why they liked her in the first place wasn’t her voice so much as it was her voice coming from that particular body. People who felt overweight and ugly found this EmPoWeRiNg, and her weight loss therefore a betrayal. Because fandom creates illusions of relationship where none exists. Fandom is mental illness.

Coughlan and Newton are stepping into the lead roles for “Bridgerton” Season 3 as the new episodes focus on their characters’ evolution from friends to romantic partners. The actor revealed on SiriusXM Hits 1 earlier this year that her negotiations with Netflix and Shondaland for Season 3 included the production of an alternate cut of episodes that did not include her racy sex scenes for the express purpose of showing it to her parents.

It’s almost like this was all planned out in pre-production and everything in this article is a lie, down to the commas.

No, that can’t be. She was ADAMANT. She is EMPOWERED (just not like, Slutty-Empowered, because there’s an edited version, you guys). Tune in to Watch A-historical people in Historical Drama. That is also EMPOWERING, and not CRINGE. Suck it, Haterzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“It’s literally written into my contract. People think I’m saying it as a joke,” Coughlan said. “I just don’t want to … We grew up Irish Catholic. That’s just not how we vibe.”

Yes, as everyone knows. Irish Catholics do not get naked and have sex. That is why Irish Catholic families are so small. They’re like pandas, really; you’ve got to beg them to fuck.

No, I know what this really means. Catholicism isn’t extra special keen on naked actresses or sex in entertainment. How repressive. Why share your sexuality with a life-long partner when you can create a fake version of it, involving nothing more than “chilling” under a blanket, surrounded by lighting crew and cameramen and an Intimacy Coordinator asking you if you’re okay every five seconds, and a director who just wants to get the shot done and keep to his shooting schedule so Netflix will hire him again. That’s hot right there.

And before anyone asks, no, I haven’t watched Bridgerton. I don’t care if it’s any good. People who like that sort of thing undoubtedly find it the sort of thing that they like. It would be nice if people didn’t have to rely on this Barnum & Bailey rhetorical Rochambeau to get people to watch a period drama, but this is the world the Internet has wrought.