The Untold Truth Of Fleabag

Rome wasn't built in a day — and neither was the Emmy award-winning series Fleabag. While most fans of the show likely know the television program was inspired by Phoebe Waller-Bridge's one-woman show of the same name, you might be surprised to hear that, in its earliest form, Fleabag was a ten-minute comedic monologue.

As Waller-Bridge explained to the Los Angeles Times, Fleabag originated as a favor to a friend, Deborah Frances-White, who needed to fill an empty ten-minute slot at a comedy show. "She had been trying to get me to do stand-up for ages," Waller-Bridge told the publication, joking that Frances-White "tricked" her into performing by describing the comedy show as "storytelling with comedians" and assuring her she'd be sitting down.

While her monologue was far from a traditional stand-up set, the audience was floored by her performance. At the insistence of her friends, Waller-Bridge expanded the piece into a full-length play. "Before I knew it, we had a venue at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival," Waller-Bridge told the Los Angeles Times. She added, "It was the best kind of bullying from my friends ever."

Fleabag is a story told purely through the perspective of its main protagonist, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Wherever she goes, the audience follows — no scene in the series exists without her presence. However, despite her essentialness to the plot, the quick-witted London gal is never addressed by name. 

According to a 2017 Vanity Fair profile, Waller-Bridge initially couldn't think of a name that suited the character, leading to her namelessness. Soon, however, the writer-actress fell in love with the idea of keeping her name a secret. "I liked the idea of withholding some of that mystery," Waller-Bridge told the publication. While she doesn't have a proper name, Fleabag's main character is referred to by fans (and Waller-Bridge) as, well, Fleabag. As Waller-Bridge explained to the Los Angeles Times, the title/nickname was taken directly from her own childhood nickname. "It was my family nickname as far back as I can remember," the star revealed.

Luckily, Waller-Bridge's nickname fell perfectly in line with the character she'd created. She explained to Vanity Fair, "That word, 'fleabag,' that felt right, because there's a messy connotation to it."

Unlike Season 2, which garnered a total of 11 Emmy nominations, the first season of Fleabag didn't receive recognition from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Still, the series was a breakout hit with critics. In a 2016 review, The New York Times observed that Fleabag "[didn't] quite feel like anything else on television." Reviewing the first season, GQ UK wrote, "It's dirty, it's sexy, it's disgusting, it's hilarious — and it's about being a girl. As in, a real girl. Scared? You should be."

While Season 1 was a critical darling, Phoebe Waller-Bridge initially had no plans of bringing Fleabag back for a second season. After all, the first season had closely followed the arc of her one-woman show, and wrapped nicely with a somewhat happy ending for the main character. As Waller-Bridge explained to the Los Angeles Times, she decided to start working on a second season when Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer posed the question, "Is there anything left for her to learn?"

For Waller-Bridge, the answer was a resounding yes. 

With multiple Emmy wins, heaping amounts of critical acclaim, and no shortage of praise from the general public, Fleabag is a bona fide hit. And, if you fancy yourself a Fleabag fan, you'll be happy to know you're in good (and famous) company.

According to The Irish News, multiple celebrities were in the audience to watch Phoebe Waller-Bridge in an August 2019 performance of Fleabag at London's Wyndham's Theatre. As the publication reported, Waller-Bridge's "virtuoso monologue" was met with uproarious applause from the audience, including a standing ovation from Oscar winner Rami Malek.

In September 2019, a Fleabag audience member snagged photos of pop queen Taylor Swift at another one of Waller-Bridge's Wyndham's Theatre performances. As it turns out, Swift is a total fan girl for Waller-Bridge, as evidenced by her excitement over appearing on the same Saturday Night Live episode as the Fleabag creator. "Ever since I saw Fleabag, I've been all 'I can't wait to see this woman host [SNL]," Swift tweeted in August 2019. She added, "It's happening now + I get to be there too = I am in shambles."

While the entirety of Fleabag's second season was praised by critics and audiences alike, the most talked-about, critically acclaimed episode was the Season 2 premiere, aptly titled "Episode 1." AV Club called the second season premiere — which centered around an incredibly awkward family dinner — a "godsend," describing it as "an early frontrunner for best episode of the season, if not the series." IndieWire called the episode "a cinematic comedy masterpiece." However, setting aside the comedic talents of Waller-Bridge and Fleabag's ensemble cast, the real star of the show (or, rather, the show's Season 2 premiere) was a jumpsuit. 

In "Episode 1," Fleabag wears a sleeveless black jumpsuit with a halter neck, keyhole cutout, and open back. According to The Guardian, once it was reported by Stylist that the jumpsuit could be purchased for £38 (about $47 USD) from the online retailer Silk Fred, it completely sold out in just one day. Luckily, as reported by The Guardian, the London label behind the famous jumpsuit, Love, "quickly put another 500 jumpsuits into production."

Perhaps Twitter summed up the phenomenon best: "The Fleabag jumpsuit is a movement."

A major star of Fleabag's second season was Andrew Scott, who portrayed the priest with whom Fleabag falls head-over-heels in love. Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character, her love interest is never given a proper name. Instead, he's known only as "The Priest," or, as some fans affectionately call him, "Hot Priest."

As Waller-Bridge revealed at the Television Critics Association in January 2019 (via Vanity Fair), she crafted the priest character specifically for Scott, whom she befriended while working alongside the actor on the play Roaring Trade a decade earlier. "It couldn't have been anyone else," the writer-actress said. She continued, "He's just a magical human being. He can't do anything other than be really complex and truthful in a character — so I knew that the moment I gave this character to him in my imagination, he became real."

According to Scott, the onscreen chemistry he shared with Waller-Bridge came naturally. "I certainly found it extremely easy to play, loving Phoebe, because I love her as a person," the actor told Vanity Fair.

The final episode of Fleabag's second season was a sucker punch of emotion, largely due to the relationship between Fleabag and the Priest. Throughout the season, viewers watched as the two characters quickly fell for one another despite their fundamental differences. As a priest, Andrew Scott's character's life was dedicated to his faith, meaning a healthy, fulfilling romance with Fleabag was out of the question. Still, it seemed as though the Priest would abandon his former life for Fleabag — that is, until the final moments of the Season 2 finale. 

The season ended with (spoiler alert!) Fleabag and the Priest confessing their love for one another at a bus stop before saying goodbye for good. However, as Phoebe Waller-Bridge revealed on the How To Fail podcast (via Esquire), the Priest was never supposed to tell Fleabag that he loved her, too — but Scott was insistent. "Andrew came [to set] and he was like 'I'm saying it,'" Waller-Bridge revealed. She added, "I actually think the clincher of the whole thing is that he says it. [Scott] was so right, and we have him to thank for that."