'Bridgerton' star Nicola Coughlan asks fans to stop sending her their opinions about her body

• "Bridgerton" star Nicola Coughlan asked fans via Instagram to stop asking about her weight.
• She wrote that it is "really hard" when thousands of people send comments about the way she looks.

"Bridgerton" star Nicola Coughlan posted on Instagram asking fans to stop sending her comments about her weight directly.

Yesterday, the Irish actress, best known for her role as Penelope Featherington in the hit Netflix period drama, captioned a picture of herself: "Hello! So just a thing- if you have an opinion about my body please, 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."

A post shared by Nicola Coughlan (@nicolacoughlan)

Coughlan continued: "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."

This is not the first time Coughlan has spoken out about people commenting on her body. In 2018, Coughlan wrote an opinion article in The Guardian about critics focusing more on the way she looks rather than her acting. Last year, Coughlan also tweeted that journalists should stop asking women about their bodies in interviews.

"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," the "Bridgerton" star tweeted. "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."

—Nicola Coughlan (@nicolacoughlan) March 1, 2021

She added in the following tweet: "Also, and I mean this in the nicest way ah possible, I'm 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."

Adele, Lizzo, and Rebel Wilson are some of the many stars who have had to defend themselves from fatphobic comments or comments about losing weight in the past.

"Bridgerton" season two arrives on Netflix on March 25th.