Nicola Coughlan has posted a message asking her fans to stop sharing their “opinion” about her body.
On Sunday (30 January), the 35-year-old Bridgerton actor posted a mirror selfie on Instagram with the caption: “Hello! So just a thing, if you have an opinion about my body, please don’t share it with me.
“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,” Coughlan wrote.
“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 but I beg you not to send it to me directly,” she added.
This is not the first time Coughlan has spoken about this topic.
Last year, in a series of tweets, the Irish actor shared her views about how “we [should] stop asking women about their weight in interviews, especially when it’s completely irrelevant”.
“Every time I’m asked about my body in an interview it makes me deeply uncomfortable and so sad I’m not just allowed to just talk about the job I do that I so love,” she wrote.
“It’s so reductive to women when we’re making great strides for diversity in the arts, but questions like that just pull us backwards.”
She clarified that she meant “this in the nicest way possible” and that she’s “not a body positivity activist”.
“I’m an actor I would lose or gain weight if an important role requirement. My body is the tool I use to tell stories, not what I define myself by,” Coughlan added.
Last week, Coughlan teased a new romance plotline in the second season of Netflix’s Bridgerton.
The actor played Penelope Featherington, the youngest Featherington daughter, in the first season of the hit show, and is expected to feature prominently in season two.
Bridgerton season two arrives on Netflix on 25 March 2022.
