Nicola Coughlan and Simone Ashley just had the cutest Bridgerton reunion at the GLAMOUR Women of the Year Awards
Nicola Coughlan and Simone Ashley just had the cutest Bridgerton reunion.
Dearest gentle reader, allow us to set the scene: tonight, GLAMOUR hosted the event of the social season, the Women of the Year Awards, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy Ring. All of the most fabulous and fashionable faces of the Ton arrived at Raffles at the OWO to celebrate this year’s winners — and amongst them were two true diamonds: Penelope Featherington and Kate Sharma… or rather, the women who play them, Nicola Coughlan and Simone Ashley.
Ashley was named Gamechanging Actor, whilst her co-star presented her with the award — and their adorable moment on stage was the sweetest Bridgerton leading lady reunion we could have hoped for.
Nicola Coughlan, wearing a black dress with red tights, took to the stage to introduce Ashley. “This remarkable woman is no stranger to breakout roles and certainly knows how to cause quite the stir, dearest gentle reader,” said Coughlan, whose character, Penelope Featherington, stepped into the role of leading lady in Bridgerton‘s latest season and revealed herself to be none other that gossip columnist Lady Whistledown.
Coughlan went on, “Yet tonight’s honouree never imagined herself in a period drama – after all, growing up, she rarely saw anyone who looked like her in any kind of TV drama at all. But it wasn’t long before she was pioneering her way through the corset-clad landscape, reshaping global views of South-Asian representation as she held her own on horseback, kicked ass at croquet and stoked the palatable tension on the ballroom floor as she quadrilled her way into our hearts in Netflix’s ‘diamond of the season’ – Bridgerton.”
Ashley served as Bridgerton’s season two leading lady, Kate, who had a swoon-worthy enemies-to-lovers arc with Jonathan Bailey’s Anthony Bridgerton back in 2022.
Coughlan went on to praise Ashley’s work with South-Asian culture hub Diet Paratha to support up-and-coming actors and her new production company, Good Catch Entertainment.
Coughlan concluded, “Please put your hands together for tonight’s Gamechanging Actor, fresh from her catwalk debut at the L’Oréal Paris show, it’s the tenaciously determined and absolutely divine Simone Ashley.”
Ashley, wearing a yellow suede gown, mounted the stage and shared the cutest hug with Coughlan. She then opened up about just how much her friend’s support meant to her.
“Nicola, thank you so much. Your schedule is just so, so busy. So, thank you so much for being here to present for me,” she said to Coughlan. “It means so much to me to have you be here tonight because we’ve been on such a journey together, and I really look up to you. So this is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I love very much.”
Is this the GLAMOUR Women of the Year Awards or Queen Charlotte’s debutant ball? Because it seems like these two diamonds are just as close IRL as they are in the Ton.
