Hello are you there? Or are you mainlining Bridgerton? I know season two just dropped today on Netflix but in some parts of the world, today is over halfway over and it’s eight episodes, eight hours, it’s very possible that some of you are done. I say this with confidence because I binged it last week, only took me a day. And I wasn’t even planning on watching the whole thing right away, it was just that I was assigned to the junket, which happened on Monday, and only got access to the screeners on the Friday before. So my plan was that I would watch the first two episodes and then the final episode and be prepped for the interviews. 

 

Didn’t work out that way. Once I started I couldn’t stop. Because… Simone Ashley! When Simone Ashley is onscreen, the energy is electric. Simone Ashley can go from Elizabeth Bennett to Regina George to Marisa Ventura to Kat Stratford to Cher Horowitz to Astrid Leong with little more than a glance – she’s unreal. And she’s a f-cking magician. I never cared for Anthony Bridgerton in season and now, opposite Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma, suddenly I’m hot for Anthony Bridgerton. Or, rather, I am hot for Anthony and Kate. Hotter for Anthony and Kate, I think, than I am for Simon and Daphne. Trust me when I tell you, for all the goddamn angst about Regé-Jean Page not returning… you won’t miss him. 

So get ready, if you haven’t started, for a new full-blown obsession: for months people have been predicting Simone Ashley to be a breakout. And she delivers. But… will everyone else deliver? 

 

Regé-Jean Page was the undisputed breakout star of Bridgerton S1. Pretty much as soon as Bridgerton premiered, RJP took off, booking movie after movie after movie – and big movies. Like RJP, Simone Ashley has delivered on her potential, she’s done her job, she f-cking brings it. There should be the same opportunities for her, and immediately. She is the full package. And also, she is unbelievably good-looking. Like so beautiful it’s stupid. I know because I interviewed her on Monday. And the moment she popped up I was like Emma Stone in Crazy Stupid Love to Ryan Gosling… 

Seriously?! How is this possible? Put her in everything! 

Here’s Simone in New York on her first North American major press tour on the weekend that millions of people are meeting her for the first time. Everything is about to change now.