Please Stop Commenting on Nicola Coughlan's Body

In case you haven’t noticed, being a celebrity leaves a famous person’s body vulnerable to intense public scrutiny on a massive level. This is something the media and general public have long regarded as our right. Celebrities chose to be famous, after all; having every wrinkle, roll and weight fluctuation mercilessly picked apart in the public eye is just part of the territory. In recent years, however, a number of stars have come forward to ask us, quite reasonably, to please stop doing this.

Following in the footsteps of Jonah Hill, who politely asked fans to stop commenting on his body back in October, Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan is the latest celebrity to request that anyone with opinions on her body please kindly keep those thoughts to themselves.

“Hello! So just a thing- if you have an opinion about my body please, please don’t share it with me,” the Irish actress captioned a recent Instagram post. Like Hill, Coughlan acknowledged that many commenters are trying to be supportive, but explained that even seemingly positive comments can be overwhelming and unwelcome.

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A post shared by Nicola Coughlan (@nicolacoughlan)

“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,” she continued, adding that while she understands that as a public figure, people will inevitably have opinions about her appearance, she would kindly like to request that anyone with opinions of that nature simply keep them to themselves.

“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,” she wrote.

Seems like a pretty reasonable request, no? Despite the frequency with which celebrities’ bodies have historically been analyzed in the public eye, it’s actually not hard to avoid commenting on people’s bodies, be they celebrity or mere normal. While we’re at it, let’s maybe also stop commenting on people’s age, regardless of whether we think they’ve “aged well” or not.

Remember, even if they’re famous, someone else’s body is really none of your damn business, so please keep your thoughts to yourself.