From petitions against LGBT romances to actors being deluged with racist comments, the Regency drama has a huge toxicity problem in its fandom – to the detriment of some of its stars’ mental health

Michaela Makusha

Thu 11 Jul 2024 13.23 BST

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When Bridgerton exploded on to TV screens around the world in Christmas 2020, it was largely applauded as a fantastical re-imaging of Regency-era Britain. It was the frothy medicine we needed – a period drama for the 21st-century viewer. Ballrooms full of black and brown faces enjoying Ariana Grande and Beyoncé songs in multicoloured ballgowns! Anachronisms galore! Sexy encounters on verandas! It felt like the ultimate modern take on a low-stakes Jane Austen fantasy.

But there is a dark underside to the show. Since the launch of the Shondaland drama, some critics have been vocal about not appreciating its racial diversity, with the Telegraph accusing it of making the story less interesting by “pandering to woke casting”.

Others have attacked Nicola Coughlan, the current season’s lead – not over her performance (which is superb), but her body. She has been given backhanded compliments – being called “very brave” for doing nude scenes as a plus-size woman – or simply subjected to downright meanness from so-called fans and even critics. The Spectator’s Zoe Strimpel wrote: “A zest for equality and diversity just isn’t enough to make a fat girl who wins the prince remotely plausible.”

The toxicity towards the actors doesn’t stop with Coughlan. When the series changed a character from the books – Michael Stirling became Michaela Stirling, meaning that a heterosexual love interest for Hannah Dodd’s shy Francesca Bridgerton became a lesbian one – a petition was started in protest. It has attracted nearly 40,000 signatures. Reddit and X are full of “This isn’t my Michael!” and claims that it is “woke trash”. Even the comments on the petition – which states that it stands against homophobia or hatred – feature plenty of, well, hatred and homophobia, including comments such as: “Sorry, we don’t want lesbians in Regency England!”

The Instagram page of the show’s executive producer Shonda Rhimes is full of hateful comments: “Don’t force inclusivity down our throats! We won’t watch this season!” When the actor Regé Jean Page, who captured hearts as the swoon-worthy Duke of Hastings, was cast, #NotMyDuke began trending on social media, in protest that he was not who fans of the books had envisioned – only for him to attract a shocking amount of hatred when he left the series.

Ruby Barker, who played season one’s Marina Thompson, a young woman who enters high society while pregnant, has also faced horrific treatment from the show’s fans. She has been subjected to racist comments about her character and mockery of the two psychotic breaks she experienced while filming – despite her mental health struggles paralleling those of her character in the books. She has felt compelled to address it in interviews. In 2021, she said: “Some people on Reddit are only comfortable seeing mixed-race women play a certain role – and they are scared. But it’s what I’m here for and I’m not going to stop.”

Charithra Chandran, one of the show’s breakout stars, for her performance as Diamond Edwina Sharma in season two, has also discussed facing racism: “‘Friends have said I only got the Bridgerton role because I’m brown. That hurts.”

There has been a huge backlash to her character’s large role compared with the books, in which she is little more than a cheerleading plot device. There are wild accusations that she spent her screen time attempting to “overshadow” her co-star Simone Ashley (apparently, women of colour cannot be in the spotlight at the same time). Some fans even went as far as cropping her out of a promotional poster.

Just a reminder: we are talking about Bridgerton fans. People watching a show full of sparkly dresses, dance cards and Coldplay on violin. What on earth is it about the show that evokes so much rage, particularly towards the actors of colour?

Amanda-Rae Prescott, an entertainment writer who has looked closely at British period dramas and diversity, feels that some of the genre’s viewers are determined to live in the past, with its attending problematic attitudes.

“The source of the problems is fans who resent Julia Quinn [the author of the novels] for dealing with Shondaland and Netflix to begin with. They wanted the world of Bridgerton to remain white and heterosexual – to the detriment of expanding viewership among people of colour and queer audiences,” she says.

“The goal of the racist reactions is to push viewers of colour, as well as white audiences interested in more diverse stories, away from the series and to stop other productions from casting actors of colour.”

There is certainly a darker, racist side to the fandom. There is an idea that the aesthetics of black and brown characters are wonderful, with many fans who spew hatred praising the beauty of the show. It seems that characters of colour are to be visually enjoyed while wearing bright colours, outrageous wigs and dancing beautifully to orchestral versions of Alicia Keys – but if any depth and meaning is given to them, all hell breaks loose on the internet.

Do Bridgerton’s fans really resent having to deal with the nuances of people of colour existing outside stereotypes? Is it such a problem to think about race and sexuality?

The protection offered to the show’s stars has proved to be an issue. Barker criticised the production company for the lack of mental health support she received after appearing in the show. “It was a really tormenting place for me to be, because my character was very alienated, very ostracised, on her own under these horrible circumstances,” she said on the Loaf podcast in 2023.

Page has not said anything about his own experiences, but did support the statement released by the cast of the Prime show The Rings of Power, which condemned the fact that people of colour among the cast received abuse and harassment. He wrote on Instagram: “I can’t believe we went through an entire era where production were happy to stand by, tell us it was our own problem and refuse to stand up to racist abuse because it was coming from ‘fans’. Wild.”

You would hope that a show such as Bridgerton would have a better-behaved fanbase. The show marketed itself as a big twist on the Regency era, after all – which is something the genre sorely needed. Being black and a lover of period drama can often mean enjoying shows that deliberately exclude people of colour from historical narratives.

But for all that Bridgerton shows that making this genre inclusive is a good thing, it can feel as though it comes at the cost of the wellbeing of other people of colour – the actors. Do I want that to be the price of inclusivity? Of course not. But I also don’t want the show to acquiesce to a rabid fanbase. Hopefully, it can find a way to signal to its fans that they need to calm down.