Daphne And Simon Weren't Mentioned At All During Season 3 Of "Bridgerton" — Here's Why
This post contains spoilers for Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2.
Bridgerton is back in full swing now that the final episodes of Season 3 dropped on Netflix.
And during these episodes, two major Bridgerton family weddings happen — Francesca marries John Stirling, and Colin marries Penelope Featherington.
All of the Bridgerton children and their significant others were present at the weddings except for Daphne and her husband, Simon, which left fans wondering what happened to their beloved Season 1 couple.
Regé-Jean Page, who played Simon, left the series after Season 1 to pursue other projects. Phoebe Dynevor, who played Daphne, announced her departure from the series back in January 2023. At the time, she said she would not be returning to the show in Season 3, but "potentially in the future."
Not only were they absent from the season, but nobody even mentioned them at all. In a recent interview with Variety, Bridgerton showrunner Jess Brownell explained just why she made that call.
“There was a version of the scripts this season where at Penelope and Colin’s wedding, we threw a line at the fact that like, 'Oh, Daphne wishes she could be here — but she’s pregnant again,' or, 'Daphne and Simon? I just saw them, they’re sitting over there,'" she said.
"But the truth of the matter is that it just gets a little wonky to bring them up and then not see them," she continued. "But I firmly feel that in my brain, they are still a part of the universe."
"Obviously, on the television show, you’re not seeing every part of these people’s lives. And so [the characters] are still going to see Daphne and Simon, Daphne and Simon are still coming over — just not at the time when the camera happens to show up, weirdly," she said.
Then, when asked if the series would lose some other characters, like Season 2's focal couple Kate and Anthony, Jess explained, "As you can imagine, when you have an actor step into a lead role on the show and really lead the main story, it’s difficult to ask them to give up a lot of exciting opportunities to play as more of a side character. So we try to be very respectful of our actors in terms of letting them go off and do other things. And it works perfectly fine for us because of the nature of the show shifting focus. We always want to give our main couple that screen time."
Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 is now streaming on Netflix.