Francesca’s Sapphic Season – Fan Outrage over Bridgerton Season 5 Announcement
By Katie Ward
If Netflix’s Bridgerton isn’t the streaming platform’s number one draw right now, it is certainly not far off it. With two seasons featured in Netflix’s top ten most-watched shows of all time, the sexy, romantic period drama has captured audiences since it debuted with 113,300,000 viewers in 2020 [1].
With the recent release of season four proving a continuation of their roaring success, the Bridgerton showrunners have set their sights on the next era: Bridgerton season five. Starring Hannah Dodd as shy, sweet Francesca Bridgerton and Masali Baduza as spirited, outgoing Micheala Stirling, season five production is now in full swing [2]. This, however, has not seemed to excite fans the way it should.
In the series of books by Julia Quinn on which Bridgerton is based, Francesca’s story is a little different to what Netflix seems to have in mind. In the series’s sixth instalment, When He Was Wicked, Francesca marries Lord John Kilmartin and, apart from her struggles to conceive, lives quite happily until John’s sudden brain aneurysm and subsequent death, a story which Netflix follows pretty much to the letter.
However, it is what comes next (spoiler) that is different. In the book, Francesca slowly falls in love with John’s cousin, Michael Stirling, and they eventually manage to start a family [3]. In the Netflix series, instead of John’s cousin Michael, Francesca’s budding romance is with John’s cousin Micheala. The addition of one letter to a name has proven to be a small but mighty tweak – Michael is now a girl. Francesca is falling in love with a girl. For the first time, Bridgerton is representing a homosexual romance.
This has caused any amount of consternation across the internet. Every Netflix account announcing season five has been met with floods of disapproving comments – ‘not one person asked for this’, reads one with tens of thousands of likes [4]. ‘What??? Where’s my Michael?’, reads another [5].
One of the most popular videos on the season’s announcement was posted by TikTok user @alexisboyerr. Her video, titled ‘Bridgerton is getting too woke’, has received over one hundred thousand likes [6].
“In the books, it was Michael, not Micheala,’ she says. ‘And the majority of Bridgerton fans are pointing this out, saying ‘hey, can we please not do this, that’s literally not what the fans wanna see’, and yet when we say that, it’s a problem […] when you a make a show, and it goes really well, and then you start shifting this narrative, and people say ‘hey, we don’t wanna see that’, don’t be surprised when your viewership goes down.” The comments on this video are mostly in agreement. ‘As someone who struggled with infertility, I’m extremely disappointed,’ says commenter Jordan Iowrie [7] – an argument that falls a little flat, considering the season has not been released and nobody has any idea how Francesca’s infertility is developed.
In fact, most of these arguments fall flat. The outrage over deviation from the books seems odd when compared to the lack of concern for the previous, numerous changes the TV series has made. Benedict Bridgerton, straight as a pole in the books, had several romantic scenes with men in the TV series; for example, no scandal there. The level of outrage as a whole seems similarly odd when contrasted with the recent insane success of Heated Rivalry, which follows the romance (and significant sex lives) of two male hockey players. The show reached an average of 10.6 million viewers per episode [8], a viewership that seems in direct opposition to the Bridgerton outrage. How can such adoration for a gay romance exist in the same cultural moment as such hatred for a sapphic one? Is this a fetishisation of gay men, a misogynistic lack of acceptance for gay women, or a combination of the two?
Whatever the reason, whatever the backlash, Bridgerton’s sapphic storyline will go ahead. Those who need it will see it. Those who don’t will live. Hannah Dodd says it best – “Queer people did exist, have existed, and will always exist. So they deserve a love story just like everybody else” (9).
References
[1] Netflix Tudum, Top Ten Most Popular Shows on Netflix of All Time https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/most-popular/tv
[2] Netflix Tudum, Bridgerton Season 5 Lead Couple: Francesca and Michaela Story, Explained by Hannah Dodd and Masali Baduza https://www.netflix.com/tudum/features/bridgerton-season-5-leads-francesca-michaela-interview
[3] What Is Quinn Reading?, Who Does Francesca End Up With in the Bridgerton Books? https://www.whatisquinnreading.com/blog/when-he-was-wicked-book-review
[4] @taylor.gangg.19 Tiktok, 2026 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN98pnjR3Ua21-pvI87/
[5] @rosesa726 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN98pn93rgYqw-dajVO/
[6]@alexis.boyerr Tiktok, 2026 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNRX524XM/
[7] @jordieIowrie Tiktok, 2026 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZN98pwaL1oX5j-GPDbd/
[8]Hailu, Selome, ‘Heated Rivalry’ Ratings: 10.6 Million Viewers https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/heated-rivalry-ratings-viewers-1236657375/
[9] @bridgertonnetflix Instagram, 2026 https://www.instagram.com/p/DWhc2_akhKe/?img_index=1&igsh=MWkyejV1bHpna3Y5Nw==
