Domino Kirke Explains Why Penn Badgley Stopped Doing Sex Scenes.
Domino Kirke, the wife of Penn Badgley, is putting an end to rumors. Kirke, a doula, denied that she had any effect on the Gossip Girl alum's decision to cease filming sex scenes three years after he made that promise.
"I continue to get DMs about this thing that happened about three years ago, when my husband decided that he didn't want to do intimacy scenes anymore." she started with an Instagram video on September 28. "Meaning: He didn't want to have sex. He didn't want to kiss. He didn't want to do any of that, which was really major in his industry."
"So, when he decided, he didn't want to do this anymore, I was super happy for him, very proud of him because I understood how major it was," Kirke, who has a teenage son named Cassius with former partner Morgan O'Kane and a 6-year-old son and 12-month-old twins with Badgley, went on. "It's just relational hygiene, and I strive to practice this in my career as a doula."
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The 42-year-old continued by saying that she is "not just Penn Badgley's wife."
"I also do things like support people in making these kinds of decisions for themselves and their careers," Kirke remarked. "I want to say to those of you who still DM me about my husband deciding to do this for himself and his mental health, get over it."
When Badgley revealed that "fidelity in every relationship, especially in a marriage, is important to me," he raised eyebrows by citing his relationship with Kirke as one of the reasons he was no longer interested in performing sex scenes.
"If you have a partner," in a 2023 appearance on Andy Cohen Live, he stated, "and you wanna be with your partner and you have to do this with another person, frankly, for me, it's just not my desire."
The 39-year-old then stated that he was "not interested" since the performers' connection was unrealistic when specific details were choreographed in sex scenes.
“It’s just not the way sex happens, the falling against the wall and grasping at each other’s clothes, all this stuff,” in 2025, he tells The Guardian. “There’s no time for condoms; there’s no time for conversation. There’s no time for awkwardness, for real connection."
Badgley's rule still has room to bend. In the fifth and final season of his Netflix series, the You star did film some steamy scenes on screen.
"I had to throw that out the window," in a People interview last year, Badgley acknowledged. "And as I always said, I said, my desire is that least as possible, but if it's necessary, that's the show we all sign up to make. So, let's make sure it's vital, let's make sure it's important, it's deliberate. And we did."
