Ruby Barker appeared in two seasons of Bridgerton as Marina Thompson but has since been absent from the show ahead of Eloise’s love story with Phillip Crane.
Barker, 29, joined the Regency series in season 1, which premiered on Netflix in 2022. She returned as Marina in season 2 but then revealed how a struggle with her mental health affected her future on the show.
“I just want to be honest with everybody, I have been struggling,” she said via Instagram in 2022. “So, I’m in the hospital at the minute, I’m gonna get discharged soon and hopefully get to continue with my life and I’m gonna take a little bit of a break from myself.”
Barker credited executive producer Shonda Rhimes and Netflix “for giving me an opportunity, for saving me” as well as her best friends who “know who they are.” She later elaborated about suffering two psychotic breaks.
“I was just then coming out of hospital [when season 1 premiered on Netflix] because it took a year in the edit. My Instagram followers were going up, I had all these engagements to do, my life was changing drastically overnight and yet there was no support,” she said on “The Loaf” podcast in 2022. “I was trying really really hard to act like it was OK, this is OK, and that I could work and that it wasn’t a problem.”
At the time, Barker got candid about her physical and mental wellbeing, writing via Instagram, “Beautiful bodies — weight loss and toning up has been a byproduct of inner work … Cooking, moving, sleeping, accepting where I am and still getting back up. It took months for me to completely surrender to my lifestyle adaptations with the aim to better my physical, spiritual and emotional health; small changes quickly became big wins.”
The actress recalled having “panic attacks at the thought of stepping foot in a gym.”
“I would pretend I wasn’t out of breathe [sic] after climbing stairs and run to the bathroom to catch it back, I would starve myself all day, then binge, binge, binge, feel like crap then do it all over again,” she shared about how she was “not happy” and “felt like I’d lost not only my mind, but my will to take care of my inner child and cook for her, clean for her, work for her, get out and live for her.”
Barker appeared in horror film Baghead and was focused on her beauty business, My Lady Melts, after her exit from Bridgerton. She has also recently opened up about coping with “medical weight gain.”
“Many of you know my story and the battles I’ve faced living with bipolar disorder. This is the physical aftermath of eight months of treatment — and honestly, it’s brought a whole new mental challenge with it. Hooray 🙃,” she wrote via Instagram in February. “Please wish me luck on this journey, because it isn’t easy. I truly empathise with anyone struggling with their weight — the comparison, the mirror, the constant mental noise. Some days I hate what I see and can’t stop measuring myself against my past self or others.”
She concluded: “It can feel like a living nightmare, and it doesn’t resolve overnight. But on a positive note: today is my fourth day vape-free, and I’m already feeling the benefits in my cardio. One step at a time.”
Off screen, showrunner Jess Brownell confirmed that Colin’s (Luke Newton) arc with Marina came to an end but it is unclear if Barker will appear in future episodes of the show. In Julia Quinn’s book series, Marina dies of a fever following a failed suicide attempt, which sets events in motion that end with Phillip Crane (Chris Fulton) and Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie) getting together.
