Penn Badgley’s wife, Domino Kirke, claps back at DMs blaming her for husband’s sex-scene abstinence: ‘Get over it’

Ryan ColemanTue, September 29, 2026 at 3:58 AM UTC

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Domino Kirke and Penn Badgley in New York City last yearCredit: Noam Galai/GettyKey Points -

Domino Kirke publicly responded to DMs she says she still gets from fans in the wake of Penn Badgley’s decision to stop filming sex scenes.

Kirke says she was “proud” her husband of nine years refused something “really major in his industry” and praised his commitment to “relational hygiene.”

Her response to fans still upset that Badgley now enjoys a sex scene–free career? “Get over it.”

Domino Kirke thinks Penn Badgley’s fans could use a word of advice from Taylor Swift: You need to calm down.

Speaking in front of the backdrop of a 2023 Hollywood Reporter article in a video posted to her Instagram account on Monday, Kirke explained, “So I continue to get DMs about this thing that happened about three years ago.” The singer, doula, and sister of Girls star Jemima Kirke married Badgley in 2017. Six years later, he quietly announced that he’d asked to stop shooting sex scenes on his intimacy-heavy series You.

According to Kirke, the sex stopped, but fan feelings haven’t.

She described the decision as “really major in his industry because that’s the thing they like you to do, and the characters that my husband has played over the years, people have come to expect that he will continue to play that guy.” That expectation doesn’t just come from the producers and executives, but the fans.

“When he decided he didn’t want to do this anymore, I was super happy for him, very proud of him because I understood how major it was. And yeah, it’s just relational hygiene, and I practiced this, I strive to practice this in my career as a doula,” she explained. “I am not just Pam Badgley’s wife — I also do things like support people in making these kinds of decisions for themselves and their careers.”

So to “those of you who still DM me about my husband, deciding to do this for himself and his mental health,” she announced,“get over it.”

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Entertainment Weekly has reached out to a representative for Badgley for comment.

Kirke explained more fully her reason for posting the message with fans in mind in the caption of the video. “A few years ago, the internet decided I’d asked my husband to stop doing sex scenes. The truth is, my husband decided to do this for his own mental health reason,” she wrote.

Badgley has worked as an actor “since he was just 12 years old,” she pointed out. “In the entertainment world, they call actors ‘puppets’ behind their backs, and it’s even more disturbing when they start out as child actors,” she added. “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.”

Badgley in ‘You’Credit: Clifton Prescod/Netflix

Back in 2023, Badgley revealed in a bonus episode of his podcast Podcrushed that he asked Sera Gamble, the creator of the serial killer thriller You, “‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’ This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show. I don’t think I had ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, do I want to put myself back in a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?”

Badgley added that “fidelity, in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is important to me. And it just got to that point where I don’t want to do that,” leading some fans to speculate that Kirke was the silent hand guiding Badgley’s decision.

But Kirke’s right; his career is going as strong as ever, with a recent role in the upcoming Amazon romantic comedy You Deserve Each Other. And he hasn’t lost his sense of humor about the sex scenes that are already in the can.

Recalling a sex scene with his You wife Love, played by Victoria Pedretti, Badgley explained that the 700-pound camera used to capture a close-up meant Pedretti couldn’t even be in the room while shooting the scene, meaning he had to simulate the act by himself, “effectively humpin’ on the air, on a fake bed in a fake room, surrounded by a film crew.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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