Jonathan Bailey isn't thrilled by the Bridgerton fandoms response to Francesca's love interest being swapped from Michael to Mela during the Thursday August 22nd episode of the happy sad confused podcast Bailey 36 was asked by host Josh Horowitz about seeing the reaction to certain on-screen changes it is interesting to see their responses to shifts in the adaptation the actor who plays Anthony Bridgerton on the show noted which for me sometimes is quite upsetting Bailey specific spefically cited Masali beda's casting as the future love interest for Hannah dod's character Franchesca to see the way they have changed the gender of Michael to Michaela Sterling which I think is brilliant and exactly what should be happening he said season 3 of the hit Netflix series expanded on Francesca's Love Story by having her meet her now husband John Victor Ali during her debut into society by the end of the season Franchesca and John were making plans to move to his native Scotland with his cousin Michaela Michaela's introduction came as a surprise to those who've read Julia Quinn's books in which John's cousin is named Michael Bridgerton show runner Jess Brownell however revealed that changing Francesca's love story was always part of the plan the reveal of Michaela versus Michael from the books is something that I've been pitching from season one of the show Brownell told Teen Vogue in June my approach to telling a queer story on Bridgerton has been to look to the books for thematic cues I didn't want to just insert a queer character for queer character sake