Domino Kirke says she is still being blamed for a professional boundary Penn Badgley publicly described as his own more than three years ago. In a September 28 Instagram video, Kirke said people continue to send her direct messages about her husband’s decision to pull back from filming sex and intimacy scenes, even though Badgley first explained his reasoning himself in 2023.
Kirke told viewers she supported the decision and was proud of him for making it, but rejected the idea that she had pushed him into it. According to PEOPLE, she said Badgley made the choice “for himself and his mental health” after spending most of his life working in entertainment.
Badgley originally gave several reasons for wanting fewer intimate scenes while starring as Joe Goldberg on Netflix’s You. He spoke about questioning whether he wanted to remain on a career path built around romantic leads, said fidelity in his marriage was important to him and later broadened the conversation to Hollywood’s history of exploitation around intimate material.
“Those of you who still DM me about my husband deciding to do this for himself and his mental health, like get over it,” she said, while Entertainment Weekly reported that she framed his choice as part of taking greater control over a career that began when he was a child.
Kirke Says the Decision Was Penn’s, Not Hers
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Kirke filmed the video with a headline about Badgley’s earlier sex-scene comments visible behind her, directly addressing the assumption that his marriage meant she had imposed the restriction. Entertainment Weekly reported that she described his move away from those scenes as “really major” in an industry where audiences had come to expect him to play sexually and romantically driven characters.
Kirke said she was “super happy” and “very proud” when Badgley set the boundary because she understood what it meant professionally and personally. She called it a matter of “relational hygiene,” connecting the idea to her own work as a doula and emphasizing that supporting someone in making a decision is different from making the decision for them.
In the caption accompanying the video, Kirke went further by saying Badgley had been working in entertainment since he was 12 and needed to protect his mental health after years in the industry. She also argued that the choice did not cost him his audience or stop him from working, writing that he “hasn’t lost fans” and is “still getting hired.”
Badgley Asked ‘You’ to Reduce Intimacy Scenes in 2023
Badgley first made the issue public in February 2023 on Podcrushed, the podcast he co-hosts. He said he had asked You creator Sera Gamble whether he could do “no more intimacy scenes,” explaining that he had already been questioning whether he wanted to keep building a career around being cast as a romantic lead.
Badgley said fidelity was important to him and told Gamble his preference would be to take the amount of intimate material as close to zero as the show could reasonably go, while acknowledging that he had signed onto a series in which Joe’s romantic and sexual relationships were central to the story.
Gamble responded positively to the request, and Season 4 substantially reduced those scenes instead of eliminating every form of intimacy from the series.
Badgley Said the Reaction Was ‘Blown Out of Proportion’
In a March 2023 interview with British GQ, he said the reaction had been “blown out of proportion” and explained that he was talking not only about his marriage but also about the culture surrounding the production of intimate scenes and Hollywood’s history of exploitation.
He also acknowledged that setting the boundary could restrict the work available to him. Badgley said he had been nervous to approach Gamble and believed he would have set similar limits earlier if he had felt he possessed enough professional leverage to do so, while stressing that the request did not force You to change the overall trajectory of Season 4.
E! News noted in its coverage of Kirke’s new video that Badgley later returned to intimate material, and he explained in 2025 that You‘s fifth and final season required him to reconsider what he was willing to film.
Badgley said his preference remained to do as little intimate material as possible, but he was willing to participate when he and the creative team believed a scene was vital, deliberate and necessary to the show.
Entertainment Weekly noted that he is among the leads of Amazon MGM’s upcoming romantic comedy You Deserve Each Other, opposite Meghann Fahy, after completing five seasons as Joe Goldberg on You.