Nicola Coughlan Requested Her 'Bridgerton' Nude Scene As A 'F*ck You' To Body Shamers

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• Nicola Coughlan opened up about her hot nude scene in Bridgerton season 3.

• She actually requested it as a 'f*ck you' to online trolls.

• The actress, 37, has pushed back on the conversation around her body before.

Lady Whistledown would have a field day: Nicola Coughlan just revealed that she actually requested her hot nude scene in Bridgerton season 3.

The latest batch of the Netflix hit follows Nicola's Penelope Featherington as she begins a relationship with longtime best friend Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton). And, in typical Bridgerton fashion, they leave little to the imagination when it comes to their steamy scenes.

In fact, the actress, 37, asked showrunner Jess Brownell to turn it up a notch, wanting her character to show off her body in a scene that has not yet been shown to viewers.

“It just felt like the biggest ‘f*ck you’ to all the conversation surrounding my body; it was amazingly empowering,” Nicola told Stylist in a May 15 interview. “I felt beautiful in the moment, and I thought: ‘When I’m 80, I want to look back on this and remember how f*cking hot I looked!’”

But filming it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Nicola recalled getting nervous as she prepared to film her first-ever sex scene, especially after trying on the strapless thong she was required to wear during it.

"I went to the bathroom and looked in the full-length mirror," she told the Los Angeles Times in a May 12 interview. "I was like, 'Absolutely not.' I hid it down the bottom of the laundry basket. I was like, 'How am I going to do this?'"

Ultimately, her co-star Luke made her feel comfortable, with Nicola telling the pub, "By the end of the day, we were both lying under a blanket, not clothed, just chilling. We were like, 'This is why nudists do it.'"

Plus, the season, which is based on book four of Julia Quinn's hit series, centers on Penelope stepping out from the shadows as Lady Whistledown, the town’s resident gossip writer. Nicola felt this transformation personally as she brought the character to life.

“It felt like there were so many things that were reflected in real life," she added. "The whole theme of her stepping out of the shadows and into the light, and not feeling quite ready—I felt like I had to do that."

In the past, Nicola has hit back on the conversation around women's bodies. In 2018, she published a personal essay in The Guardian entitled "Critics, judge me for my work in Derry Girls and on the stage, not on my body." Three years later, she reiterated the sentiment on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“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 talk about the job I do that I so love,” she wrote in a 2021 since-deleted thread, per Paper. "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."

Season 3 of Bridgerton is streaming now on Netflix.

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