It’s been almost a year ~ cry ~ since Lady Whistledown and the whole Bridgerton gang graced our TV screens, and while we’ve rewatched the first season more times than we’d like to admit, it almost had a very different ending.

Speaking at Netflix’s Tudum event over the weekend, Nicola Coughlan aka Penelope Featherington aka Lady Whistledown, revealed the season one ending that almost was.

In fact, the show’s creators couldn’t decide how long they’d keep us waiting to find out the identity of Lady Whistledown. Initially, the ton’s version of Gossip Girl was set to be unmasked in season two, but Coughlan admitted that the final episode of season one had to be reshot after the creators changed their minds.

‘It was a reshoot in July, so they had filmed a different ending,’ Coughlan said, ‘They were going to make it seem like it [Lady Whistledown] was Cressida Cowper.’

Coughlan also revealed that even she didn’t know she was Lady Whistledown until after she’d been cast in the series. ‘I found out in a bizarre way,’ the 34-year-old laughed, ‘because when we auditioned we knew very little about the show.’

She continued: ‘It was only after getting cast that then I found out, and I found out on an internet fan forum because I realised that there was this huge, huge fandom behind these books. It was like this whole other world opened up, but they were like, “When Penelope is revealed as Lady Whistledown…” And I went, “WHAT?”‘