After season four of Bridgerton, which follows Benedict as he falls for a maid called Sophie who he meets at a masquerade ball, one of the show’s writers has delved deeper into his true sexuality and why he ends up with a woman.
In the Bridgerton books, Benedict is a heterosexual character, but the creator decided to make him bisexual in the TV show, and season three heavily explored his relationships with both men and women. He ultimately ends up with a woman, and showrunner Jess Brownell has explained that this was a very conscious decision.
“It’s really important that just because someone might end up in a heterosexual-presenting relationship, that does not negate their queerness,” she told Variety. “I think Benedict’s queerness will always be a piece of his identity. And when we were talking about representation, I don’t think there’s a lot of representation that I’ve seen of bisexual men.
“There is a really harmful and untrue stereotype that bisexual men are actually just gay men. More often, we see bisexual men ending up in media in homosexual-presenting relationships. And it felt fresh and important to see a bisexual man ending up in a heterosexual-presenting relationship and still owning the fact that he is still queer.”
Credit: Netflix
Luke Thompson, the actor who plays Benedict, actually told Bustle the best way to describe the Bridgerton brother’s sexuality is pansexual.
“Male sexuality, particularly, can feel boxy in the way that it’s explored. Let’s be clear, it was an extremely repressive period. By our modern terms, the closest [descriptor] would be something along the lines of pansexuality — being attracted to the way that someone thinks and feels, regardless of gender,” he said.
“That’s a word that could be used. But what’s refreshing about it, certainly in the way that it’s being discovered at the moment, is that there is a sense of label-lessness about it.”
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Featured image credit: Netflix
