Penn Badgley’s wife, Domino Kirke-Badgley, is addressing the rumor that her husband stopped doing sex scenes onscreen because of her.

The “You” actor said on his “Podcrushed” podcast in February 2023 it was his preference to not film sex scenes for the Netflix show because “fidelity in my — in every relationship, and especially my marriage — is important to me. And yeah, it just got to a point where I don’t want to do that.”

Also at the time, while appearing on “Andy Cohen Live,” he said he didn’t have the “desire” to “[be intimate] with another person” onscreen amid his marriage with Kirke-Badgley.

In a Monday Instagram post, Kirke-Badgley, a professional birth doula who married Badgley in February 2017, revealed she still receives DMs from fans who blame her for the actor’s decision.

“I continue to get DMs about this thing that happened about three years ago, when my husband decided that he didn’t want to do intimacy scenes anymore,” she said in a video with a photo of a news article discussing her husband’s comment behind her.

Noting that Badgley didn’t want to have sex or even kiss any other actors on set, she called her husband’s decision “really major in his industry because that’s the thing they want you to do the most.”

Kirke-Badgley said that after fans witnessed the different characters her husband has played over the years, people have come to “expect that he will continue to play that guy.”

She stressed that the “Gossip Girl” alum, with whom she shares three children, made the decision years ago for “relational hygiene” and mental health reasons.

In the caption on her post, Kirke-Badgley noted her husband has worked in the industry since he was 12 years old, and “it was time” for him to make the change.

“In the entertainment world, they call actors ‘puppets’ behind their backs, and it’s even more disturbing when they start as child actors,” she continued in the caption. “So finally, after years of trying, Penn decided to take a stand and let the world see him. And guess what, he hasn’t lost fans and he’s still getting hired!”

Kirke-Badgley emphasized that when he made the decision to cut out the scenes, she was “super happy for him” and “very proud.”

Wrapping up her message, she added, “I want to say, to those of you who still DM me about my husband deciding to do this for himself and his mental health, get over it.”

Speaking with British GQ in March 2023, Badgley shared he was surprised by how much his comments had been “blown out of proportion” on the internet.

“What I was speaking about wasn’t actually the final product,” he explained. “It was sort of like the culture inherent to the production of all movies, but particularly those scenes. It’s like, look, we know that Hollywood has had a history of flagrant exploitation and abuse.”

Badgley, who later filmed intimate scenes with his co-stars for Season 5 of “You,” which released in April 2025, told People he ultimately had to throw his desire for no sex scenes out the window — but for good reason.

“That was the question again. All right, what am I willing to do?” he explained. “And as I always said, I said, my desire is that least as possible, but if it’s necessary, that’s the show we all sign up to make. So, let’s make sure it’s vital, let’s make sure it’s important, it’s deliberate. And we did.”

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