Dearest readers, it is with great sadness that I must announce to you that Regé-Jean Page has, once again, shut down any hope we had of him returning to Bridgerton. The actor, who stole our hearts in season 1 playing the brooding Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, artfully dodged a question about returning to Bridgerton while promoting his new spy thriller, Black Bag.
“I’m very happy to support everyone who’s in the show,” Page told Entertainment Tonight when asked if he’d consider a cameo appearance. “Everyone’s finding fantastic success but with the show and personal projects, I’m just super happy to see that.” So...you’re saying there’s a chance? That didn’t sound like a no to me!
Of course, in context, it seems pretty clear that Regé-Jean has absolutely zero plans to ever return to Bridgerton. In fact, he’s been adamant about leaving the show behind since it became a global sensation. “It’s a one-season arc. It’s going to have a beginning, middle, end—give us a year,” Regé-Jean told Variety in 2021 of his intentions going into the series. “It felt like a limited series. I get to come in, I get to contribute my bit and then the Bridgerton family rolls on.”
He felt so strongly about ending the Duke’s story with season 1 that he reportedly turned down a huge payday to return for Bridgerton season 2. Of course, fans have speculated about the truth behind his exit, but the actor has made it clear there was no drama behind his decision.
“I signed up to do a job and I did the job and then I did some other jobs. That’s it. That’s the story,” he said in a 2023 interview with Vanity Fair. “After we finished the story, the temptation would be to roll with the distractions and go, ‘Oh, well, the story went really well, so we can kind of change this up and make some other stuff up, I guess.’ That was never what we’d signed up to do.”
So, no, you shouldn’t expect Regé-Jean to pop up in Bridgerton season 4, but there are plenty of other Bridgerton castmates returning.
