Nicola Coughlan dismisses rumours of ‘Bridgerton’ photoshopping her waist to appear thinner

This is not the first time that Coughlan had to deal with body shaming for her role as Penelope Featherington. (Image via X)

Nicola Coughlan has been making headlines for her incredible performance in the second part of the third season of ‘Bridgerton’ that released on Netflix this week. She recently sat down for an interview with People Magazine and cleared the rumours of her waist being photoshopped in the series.

Nicola coughlan revealed that it was the Regency inspired costumes of 'Bridgerton' with their cinched corsets that ignited the rumours on the internet.

“I think if you wear corsetry for long enough, your body really moulds to it. Sometimes they come in a fitting for a fashion designer and they put a corset on me and I'm like, ‘Oh, you can go tight,’ and they go, ‘What do you mean?’ I'm like, 'My body now will go whew,’” Coughlan explained.

She added, “I saw some trolls. They were like, ‘They photoshopped your waist,’ and I was like, ‘No, they did not.’”

This is not the first time that Coughlan had to deal with body shaming for her role as Penelope Featherington. During a Q&A for the third season of ‘Bridgerton,’ Coughlan was told that she was very “brave” for doing nude scenes.

“Women with my body type — women with perfect breasts — we don’t get to see ourselves onscreen enough. And I’m very proud as a member of the perfect breast community. We don’t get to see ourselves on screen enough,” Coughlan retorted back.

It was Nicola herself who asked to do a nude scene to silence the body shamers.

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

All episodes of ‘Bridgerton’ season 3 are streaming on Netflix.