Bridgerton Fandom: Shipping of actors leading to bullying, harassment and toxicity

As a romance show Bridgerton requires the viewers to 'ship' the couples, however, occasionally some will take this outside the show and fictional characters, projecting their desire to see the fictional couple's romance play out in real life for the actors. This can go too far, however, with the most extreme of these fans harassing, bullying and stalking the actor or their partners, something that we have seen play out within a subsection of the Bridgerton fandom. 

Image Credit: Netflix

'Shipping' is the act of enjoying, creating, or supporting a particular romantic relationship. The term shipping in this context is derived from the word relationship. Within the world of Bridgerton the viewers and fans need to be invested in, and support the relationships onscreen in order for the success of the show to be sustained, however, as mentioned above, this has gone much further for a small subsection of the more extreme fans of Bridgerton, or at least one couple in Bridgerton. Instead of keeping their focus on the characters, and romance, of Penelope and Colin a small section of fans have projected their desires for Penelope and Colin onto the actors, resulting in some concerning online behaviour.  It is important that we note this is not a consequence of the PR for season 3, but is something that has been prevalent for several years in the fandom, but has been exacerbated by the PR strategy for season 3.

The idea of wanting to see favourite actors date, and have a relationship in real life is not new, it has been around as long as the movies themselves, however, sometimes this goes beyond just thinking that the actors look great together or have amazing chemistry. The behaviour that has been invading a small subsection of the Bridgerton fandom is toxic and dangerous for the actors and for those people closest to them in their lives.  The shipping of Luke Newton and Nicola Coughlan is one such example of toxic behaviour by fans that ship the actors in real life with some fans chronically stalking Luke and his girlfriend online, as well as following and stalking his friends and family online and the friends and family of his partner online.  These fans are so deep in their belief that Luke should be with Nicola some have moved their obsession from online spaces into real life spaces as well. 

I first became aware of this behaviour during the filming of season 3 when I learned of a small group of fans who were involved in online harassment and bullying of Luke's girlfriend at the time.  The bullying of her became so bad that the fans were harassing her at her work. Jade, his girlfriend at the time, is a singer and musical theatre actress, and during the winter of 2022/2023 she was in a Christmas musical show in London.  During the promotion for the production each of the cast took turns to do a 'Social Media takeover' where they would take control of the official social media accounts for the show. Jade was one of the cast members to do a Social Media Takeover for the show, but during the time she was in control of the account some Bridgerton fans went onto the account and harassed and bullied her for no reason other than she was Luke Newton's partner. This incident led to her shutting down her social media for a time, and it was at this that Luke Newton left twitter. 

Whilst this incident with Jade was awful for her, it was by no means the first, nor was it the last instance of Bridgerton fans harassing and bullying her.  In fact Jade had been targeted by some extreme Polin fans prior to this incident.  There are reports that a small group of the more extreme fans had a WhatsApp group to make fun of her and mock her medical condition (I won't disclose that as I don't know how open she is about it). In addition to this, there were those that would comment on her social media with trolling comments, and make TikToks to bully and mock her. Despite Luke and Jade having broken up she continues to be mocked and bullied online by a small subsection of Bridgerton fans. In one comment I saw the other day one fan suggested that Jade was overreacting to the bullying and harassment she had received and was doing it to try and 'play victim'. This behaviour is nasty and toxic, and this subsection of the Bridgerton fandom are repeating the toxic and bullying behaviour online. 

Luke Newton has a new partner, and like Jade, she is targeted by those in the fandom who see her as an obstacle to Luke and Nicola being together.  Whilst she has not yet been targeted in her professional capacity as Jade was, she is still bullied and harassed on her own social media accounts.  But it is not just on her own accounts that she is targeted, some fans hold lives on X and TikTok that can last for hours where they discuss Luke's girlfriend and make up conspiracies about her, they also dissect every social media post she makes and blame her for any negative press about Luke or Nicola.  The bullying, harassment and nastiness goes further as some on X use derogatory and misogynistic language when talking about her, such as 'slut' or 'cockroach'.  There are fans that have openly stated they will hate on Luke's new girlfriend because she is with Luke and they believe he should be with Nicola, and then there are the ones that believe Luke and Nicola are in a secret relationship and Luke is cheating on Nicola with his girlfriend. Outside of this online toxic bullying, one fan boasted how she tracked down a hotel that Luke was staying in on holiday and called them up to demand information on whether his girlfriend was with him, another stalked him at another hotel he was at in LA and covertly took photos of him and his girlfriend. 

This behaviour shows a disturbing lack of boundaries by fans, as well as a lack of respect for the actors, all so that this small group of fans can project their own fantasies onto Luke and Nicola.  However, this lack of respect and lack of boundaries also extends to the families, partners and friends of Luke especially, to the point that these fans have harassed and bullied two young women because they ship two actors. There are also reports that members of Luke's family have been doxxed, as well as the family of his girlfriend - people who are not in the entertainment industry, not in the spotlight and who don't seek to be so. 

Over the recent months as information about Nicola's relationship has leaked it has been interesting to note that neither Nicola, nor her partner, have received a fraction of the bullying, harassment and toxicity that Luke and his girlfriend has. The anger and hatred of these people appears to be directed solely at the female partner, not the male partner. It is sad that the actors, and those close to them, have to deal with this from those that claim to be their fans. 

Bridgerton: Where the show's writers failed Kate and Anthony

For a show that prides itself on diversity, Bridgerton has repeatedly failed in providing good writing and storytelling for its more diverse characters, something that I plan to look into in more depth at a later date, however, today I am going to do a short overview post on one such situation.  This post will look at the failures in the storytelling for Kate, and by extension Kate and Anthony as a couple, predominantly looking at the missed opportunities on the part of the writers, both in season 2 and in season 3.  

Image Credit:  Netflix

Kates Past

I believe this is one of the biggest failings in storytelling from the production. 

Whilst we see some very good character development for Kate in her season, mostly due to the incredible acting of Simone Ashley as opposed to good writing for her character, we are still none the wiser about what actually shaped her and made her become the character we see in the beginning of the season, whilst we see what shaped Anthony through the use of flashbacks telling his story.  I realise that some may argue that we learned of Kate's past through dialogue, but whilst we learned a few snippets in this manner we didn't see the impact the big life events had in moulding her character. This is a huge failing in my opinion.  

Season 2 set up Kate and Anthony to be mirrors of each other, with their experiences in life meant to reflect each others.  However, this mirroring was never fleshed out in the storytelling.  We saw one side of the mirror that was Kate and Anthony, almost as if the mirror was blacked out and there was no reflection, leading to the situation where the viewer had to infer the reflection (something which social media discourse tells us many failed at). As indicated above, brief mentions of Kate past were present, and we could see the way that Kate was treated by her half sister, her stepmother, and her stepmother's parents, however, nothing showed us how they got to that point.  We were told about their perceived relationships, but this was rarely done from Kate's perspective, and so it was set up for Kate to be a bit part in her own season whilst they focused on other characters.  

One thing that highlighted the way that Kate's past was treated in her own season, compared to other characters, was the flashback given to Penelope, who would be the protagonist of season 3.  This flashback for Penelope gave us a glimpse in to her recent past and was perhaps something that could have been saved for Penelope's season instead of including it in Kate's season when we didn't find out anything about Kate's past - recent or otherwise.  In fact we know more about Penelope's past BEFORE her season than we ever found out about Kate's past DURING her season.   The line in episode 5 where Kate says "My mother had a name" resonates, of course her mother had a name - but what was it?  We never find out that name, in fact we know nothing about Kate's mother except that she was dead and that Kate had her wedding bangles.  We know Penelope's mothers name, we know Simon's mothers name, so why is Kate the only Bridgerton spouse (so far) that we don't know the name of?  

It isn't just Kate's mother's name, there is a lot about Kate's mother, and Kate's father, that shaped who she was as a character, but the show failed to tell us for the sake of melodrama, and spending more time than was needed on the Featherington family.  By the end of season 2 it feels like we knew more about Penelope's background, history and family life than Kate's and this is unacceptable for a lead of a season.  

What makes this worse for many is that Kate is a dark skinned South Asian woman of colour, she has been used by the production to highlight the diverse casting and position themselves with this point of difference in the world of historical romance, but in the season when she was the female lead the writers gave more prominence to telling the background of the white season 3 lead.  I feel that this is one of the most egregious failures of the Bridgerton production. 

Wedding

The very first post I wrote and posted on Tumblr spoke about why a wedding for Kate and Anthony made sense.  I discussed why a wedding made sense for Kate and Anthony's story, and this is something that I still believe to be the case. A wedding to bring these two characters together towards the end of their season would not have been only about providing fan service, nor would it have been about showing a wedding in a romance, but it could have shown a very important aspect of the relationship between Kate and Anthony going forward, cementing their commitment to each other, as well as to themselves, after spending so much of their lives living for other people. 

Over and above the idea of this commitment, a wedding for Kate and Anthony would be a chance to show, and not only tell us, Anthony's promises from throughout the season.  In episode 2 at Lady Danbury's soiree we see Anthony say to Edwina that 'pretty words are well and good, but they are useless unless backed by action', and then in episode 8 we see Anthony say to Kate that he wants a life that suits them both.  A wedding for Kate and Anthony could link those two statements, giving action to Anthony's words and showing us his intent and promise as opposed to just telling us about them.  Whilst for some fans a wedding may not be seen as important, or something that is needed in the show, I would argue that for Kate and Anthony's story it was important to show that Anthony truly wanted to see them have a life that suited them both through action.  How better to do that than show them beginning their life together with a culturally fused wedding that included Indian elements with a traditional Church of England wedding.  So, a wedding for Kate and Anthony that included Indian elements as well as traditional English elements would, in my view, be putting action to Anthony's 'pretty words' of wanting a life to suit them both.  

Whilst a wedding would be putting the action to words, there is one other reason for why not having a wedding was a failure for Kate and Anthony (and their fans) that wasn't included in my first post.  I see that a wedding for Kate and Anthony would show the viewer them committing to each other with love, which would be a completion to their season 2 arc, showing how each of them opened themselves to love and chose something - and someone - for themselves instead of them both just doing what they believed was right for everyone else.  A wedding would also show us that Kate has let go of her trauma and know that she is loved unconditionally and does not need to be useful to anyone to be loved, and similarly we could see Anthony let go of some of his trauma and see him marrying not out of duty but because he was in love.  

So far in this series Kate and Anthony are the only couple that have gone to the altar completely open with their love and their lives, and this was their story arc - learning to become open with themselves and their love of themselves and each other.  This is why I reject the premise that a wedding for Kate and Anthony had no narrative purpose, I truly believe that a wedding for them would close their season 2 arc, and allow for their post marriage story to begin in season 3.  

Image Credit: Netflix

Baby

This is something that is unforgivable in my opinion, and though there are some in the Bridgerton fandom who don't understand (or care) and are saying 'but we saw Kate pregnant' as a reason that us actually seeing the baby wasn't important shows a lack of media literacy in some, as for Kate and Anthony, I would argue, it was very important for us to see a baby at the end of season 3 - more so than seeing one for Penelope and the Featherington girls.  

The first, and most obvious, reason that not seeing Kate give birth and have a baby in season 3 was a failure is the way it exposes the ineptness of the writer's room in being unable - or unwilling - to complete a story arc they started.  The show runner and the writers had Kate and Anthony's whole season 3 story revolve around Kate getting - then being - pregnant, but then they failed to follow that storyline though, basically there was no pay off for the viewers.  I briefly mentioned this as one of the failures of season 3 in a previous post here.  

Kate and Anthony's story in season 3 ended with them travelling to India, however the story arc that was begun for Kate and Anthony was never completed. This exposed the writers, and show runner as failing in the most basic aspects of storytelling that most primary school children know - that a cohesive story has a start, a middle and an ending.  Whether this failure in the storytelling was as a result of contempt for the characters, laziness or incompetence is hard to know, but whatever the reason the show runner has not only failed the characters, but also the viewers, with this incomplete storyline.  

The missed opportunity for storytelling by failing to show Kate having a baby is immense and could have gone beyond showing an impact for Kate and Anthony as characters.  With the obvious use of a birthing scene being used for Anthony's healing, this scene could have also been used to progress Eloise's growth and work towards preparing her for her own season by providing a contrast between Edmund's birth and Hyacinth's birth.  Most importantly an expanded pregnancy storyline, and a birthing scene could have been used to show us some of Kate's past through the use of flashbacks to Kate's birth (and maybe even Edwina's birth), but the storyline itself could have been a way to provide context to Kate as a character, bringing in her mother and showing us more of Kate's past.  For two seasons there has been discussion around Anthony requiring an heir, with emphasis on this in season 2, and the writers just ignored all of that by showing no imagination and using lazy storytelling.  

Aside from the storytelling aspects, by failing to follow through with Kate and Anthony's storyline in season 3 and not showing us their baby, the show runner and writers have solidified the negative perception that many have of the production, especially in relation to the commitment that Shondaland, Netflix and the Bridgerton production truly have to diversity in the show.  It is becoming clearer to many that the characters of Kate and Anthony are being given less, and treated as lesser, than other couples, and it has not escaped their notice that they are the characters played by an openly gay man and a dark skinned South Asian woman.  When a couple that had no indication of a baby in their story arc in season 3 finishes the season with a baby, but the couple whose entire story arc was about having a baby doesn't get a baby, it shows an inequality and a distinct disparity in the way that the showrunner, the producers and the writers see the characters.  

One pairing appear to be loved by the production, with the production appearing to have bent over backwards to have the viewers love them as well, whilst ensuring they get everything that is expected and anticipated in a romance, whilst the other couple have had their major life moments as a couple relegated to being offscreen.  This is something that rankles many fans, and as noted above it hasn't been missed that the couple that are being treated as lesser are the couple played by an openly gay man and dark skinned South Asian woman, whilst the couple that is loved by the production are played by straight white actors.