Nicola Coughlan Wants Fans to "Please, Please" Stop Sharing Opinions About Her Body
Nicola Coughlan, the Irish actress who stars in Netflix's Derry Girls and Bridgerton, is getting tired of hearing unsolicited opinions about her body. The actress took to Instagram on Monday to officially ask for an end to the comments—positive or negative—that people have shared with her online.
"Hello! So just a thing—if you have an opinion about my body, please, please don't share it with me," Coughlan wrote on Instagram. "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, who is currently promoting the forthcoming second season of Bridgerton, went on to write that while she knows she's a public figure, that doesn't mean she wants to see opinions about her body filling up her notifications.
"If you have an opinion about me that's okay," Coughlan wrote. "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."
Sounds like a reasonable request to us.
This isn't the first time Coughlan used social media to call out unwanted commentary on her body. In 2018, Coughlan criticized the British Theatre Guide for sending the same reviewer to two shows where Coughlan was a cast member—in both reviews, the writer drew attention to Coughlan's figure as part of his column.
"Philip Fisher, I know you are a theatre reviewer and your body had no relevance to your job but maybe you'd like me to cruelly review it for you and post it online?" Coughlan tweeted at the time.
Coughlan wrote a column in The Guardian about being asked about her body in 2018. When she reshared it on Twitter in 2021, she added that "every time I'm asked about my body in an interview, it makes me deeply uncomfortable and so sad [that] I'm not just allowed to just talk about the job I do that I so love."
Coughlan's Instagram post mimics a similar refrain that Jonah Hill shared last year. "I know you mean well, but I kindly ask that you not comment on my body," Hill wrote in a note on Instagram in October. "Good or bad, I want to politely let you know it's not helpful and doesn't feel good. Much respect."
We couldn't agree more with Coughlan's sentiments. A person's body does not define who they are, and no one should be subjected to unsolicited advice about it—or anything, for that matter. We can't wait to see the stellar Coughlan shine in new seasons of Derry Girls and Bridgerton later this year.