Nicola Coughlan says she ‘wanted to die’ after fan commented on her body

Nicola Coughlan has said she ‘wanted to die’ after a drunken fan began commenting on her body during an awkward encounter in a bathroom.

The Bridgerton actor said the moment made her deeply uncomfortable and highlighted how conversations about her work often shift towards her appearance instead.

Speaking in an interview with Elle UK, the Irish actress recalled the incident with a fan who praised the Netflix series but focused on her body.

‘I remember this really drunk girl once talking to me in a bathroom being like, “I loved Bridgerton because of your body”,’ Coughlan said.

‘I was like, “I want to die. I hate this so much”.’

‘It’s really bizarre’

Coughlan, 39, said she finds it frustrating when discussions about her work are reduced to conversations about her appearance.

Despite being a size 10, she said she is often labelled plus-size in public commentary.

Discussing the reaction to her nude scenes in Bridgerton, the actor said some of the response felt ‘really bizarre’.

‘What was really bizarre was when I was shooting that series, I was exercising a lot because I knew I had to,’ she said.

‘I had lost a bunch of weight. I was probably a size 10 and one of the corsets was a size eight.’

‘Then people talked about how I was plus size, and I was like, “How f—— are we that I am the biggest woman you want to see on screen?”’

‘I have no interest in body positivity’

Coughlan also said she does not consider herself part of the body positivity movement and finds the focus on her size uninteresting.

‘The thing I say sometimes that pisses people off is I have no interest in body positivity,’ she said.

‘When I was a kid growing up, I never thought about that. I didn’t look at actors and think about their bodies. So I actually don’t care.’

She added that it can be frustrating when months of work on a project are overshadowed by comments about how she looks.

‘It’s really hard when you work on something for months and months of your life, you don’t see your family, you really dedicate yourself, and then it comes down to what you look like,’ she said.

ADHD diagnosis brought ‘more grace’

Elsewhere in the interview, Coughlan said she has learned to give herself more ‘grace’ after being diagnosed with ADHD.

‘It feels like I got the handbook to my brain that I wasn’t given when I was born,’ she said. ‘I understand things a bit better now, and I give myself a little more grace.’

Coughlan is best known for playing Penelope Bridgerton in Netflix’s Bridgerton and Clare Devlin in Channel 4 comedy Derry Girls.

She has also appeared in the 2023 film Barbie and starred in Channel 4’s Big Mood, a role that earned her a Bafta nomination.

Her full interview appears in the April issue of Elle UK, which will be available on March 10.