Penn Badgley Elaborates on Lack of Sex Scenes in 'You' Season 4, Says the Story Isn't Clickbait

Penn Badgley is elaborating on the news that he requested to have no more intimate scenes in the fourth season of his Netflix series You.

The 36-year-old actor previously revealed on his podcast that asked You showrunner Sera Gamble if his character Joe could have no more intimate scenes.

“Fidelity in every relationship, including my marriage, is important to me. It’s got to the point where I don’t want to do that. So I said to Sera, ‘my desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero.’ But I signed this contract. I signed up for this show. I know what I did,” Penn previously said.

While appearing on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live, Andy noted in the interview that the headlines were likely just clickbait. Penn confirmed they weren’t.

Keep reading to find out more…

Check out the transcript of the interview…

Andy Cohen: I read some, what I thought were probably clickbait headlines, saying that you had asked not to do any more sex scenes. So I feel, I was like, I bet there’s some variation of this, but it’s clickbait.

Penn Badgley: No, no, no, no. It’s not clickbait. So here’s what I did. Before I took this show, right, five years ago, I was questioning whether or not I could continue on the path that I’m on, because I didn’t wanna do those kinds of scenes anymore. You know? I just didn’t want to, and I’ve done a whole lot of them. So I never told anybody this.

Andy Cohen: The path that you were on as like a romantic leading man?

Penn Badgley: Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Yes. And that, that involves all kinds of objectification.

Andy Cohen: Is that why you grew a bushy beard? You’re trying to get people not to look at you and think you’re cute.

Penn Badgley: No, no, it’s not. This is pretty practical where managing hair, when you have a lot of it, it actually just takes more work and time, to be honest.

Andy Cohen: Okay. So back to the sex scenes.

Penn Badgley: Yeah, I mean, so I said this on a bonus episode of my podcast, and this came out last week, and I guess now everybody, you know…

Andy Cohen: It’s everywhere, yeah.

Penn Badgley: I don’t, to be honest, I think if you actually talk to a lot of actors, I don’t think I’m in a minority here at all. I think what you end up having to do, you know, I don’t care what your orientation preference is. If you have a partner and you wanna be with your partner and you have to do this with another person, it frankly for me, you know, it’s just not my desire.

Andy Cohen: Yes. But isn’t it part of the job?

Penn Badgley: It is. And that’s where I questioned honestly…

Andy Cohen: Whether you should take the role.

Penn Badgley: Whether or not I should take the role. And then, so in my conversation with the creators, I didn’t say, “Can I have none?” I said, “My preference would be none.” I know the role I signed up for.

Andy Cohen: Right. Because the guy is like a lothario.

Penn Badgley: Right. So you know, and by the way, the trajectory of the plot line already lent itself very much to this. So I thought, you know, and Sera Gamble, the creator I had the conversation with initially she was, you know, fully, she understood. She was fully on board. She didn’t bat an eye.

Listen to the interview below!