Bridgerton Season 3 is coming back with a bang. The new season will focus on the love story of Penelope and Colin, taking center stage. But fans can’t help but look back at the stories of Seasons 1 and 2, which laid the foundation for this successful series. While Kate and Anthony will return for Season 3, Rege-Jean Page, The Duke and Duchess of Season 1 will not. Did you know that Rege-Jean Page said no to $250k because he didn’t want to return to Bridgerton?

The news of everyone’s favorite Duke not returning for Season 2 was heartbreaking. Rege-Jean Page, who played the lead in the season, bid his goodbye to the show and even refused to return as a guest star. The news had gone viral at the time, with both Shonda Rimes and Rege maintaining that everything happened at a cordial level. However, only after that did reports suggest that things were not okay with the two of them.

Photo Credit – IMDb
Everyone dreams of making it big in Hollywood, and when you are lucky enough to have that opportunity come to you on a golden platter, you would not pass, it up, something similar happened to Page.

The rumor mill spread the news in overdrive. It was reported that Regé-Jean Page turned down a rather astounding £250,000 to star in the show’s second season. A source connected to the production informed a reputed news portal that he was offered the opportunity to return as a guest in three to five episodes of season two. Still, it declined for “a multitude of reasons.” He was offered the role for £50,000 per episode, so if he accepted the top offer of participating in five, he would have received a quarter of a million pounds for his appearances.

Photo Credit – IMDb
He did so to focus on his flourishing movie career then, for Netflix’s The Gray Man and Dungeons & Dragons. Unfortunately, both these movies performed very underwhelmingly at the box office. The Gray Man was made with a $200 million budget. Since the movie streamed on Netflix it was hard to judge the metrics. The movie’s reviews were not great, with only a 6.3 out of 10 on IMDB and 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Meanwhile, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves received better reviews and ratings. But it did not make a profit at the box office. Thieves only made $208 million worldwide against its reported $150M budget.

So, whether Rege made a good decision to leave Bridgerton when he did is still up for debate. But he did lose out on a big check!

Bridgerton Season 3 will return in two parts: Part 1 will be released on and Part 2 will be released on June 13, 2024.