Florence Pugh has a simple question for heated sexist trolls about her see-through dress: “Why are you so afraid of breasts?”
The Black Widow star hit back at the comments swirling around the completely see-through hot pink tulle Valentino dress she rocked at the couture brand’s show in Rome on Friday.
Pugh said she expected the reaction to the daring ensemble, which fully exposed her breasts, but was surprised by “how vulgar” the reaction to “two cute little nipples” was online.
“Whether it was negative or positive, we all knew what we were doing. I was excited to wear it, not a wink of nervousness,” she wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday alongside photos from the event. “I wasn’t before, during, or even now after.”
“What’s been interesting to watch and witness is how easy it is for men to completely destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for all to see,” she continued, noting that many of her critics include their “job titles and work emails” on their accounts.
“This isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last time a woman will hear what’s wrong with her body from a crowd of strangers, what’s alarming is how vulgar some of you men can be.”

(Photo by Daniele Venturelli/WireImage)
Pugh first debuted the dress on Instagram on Saturday along with the caption, “Technically they’re covered,” which was apparently enough to satisfy the platform’s notoriously restrictive and often unfairly punitive nudity policy.
Pugh shared that some of the responses included people telling her “how disappointed you are about my ‘small tits'” or that she “should be ashamed of herself for being so ‘flat chested.'”
However, the negative comments haven’t shaken Pugh’s confidence in the slightest.
“I lived in my body for a long time. I’m fully aware of my breast size and I’m not afraid of it,” she continued. “What’s more troubling is… Why are you so afraid of breasts? small? Big? To the left? right Just one? Maybe none? What. So. Terrifying.
The Oscar nominee said she attributes her self-acceptance to how she was raised “to find strength in the curves of her body” among a household of “very strong, powerful women with curves.”
Her upbringing has informed how Pugh has resisted Hollywood’s toxic beauty standards, including the expectation that her body should be “transformed into an opinion of what’s hot or sexually attractive.”
“I wore this dress because I know that if in 2022 it’s so easy for you to publicly abuse women in a loud voice, then the answer is that you’re the one who doesn’t know,” she concluded the post along with the hashtag #fuckingfreethefuckingnipple.
“Grow up. Respect people. Respect the bodies. Respect all women. Respect people. Life will get a lot easier, I promise.

Daniele Venturelli via Getty Images
Pugh has previously spoken about the relatively conservative attitude towards nudity in America, in contrast to her native England, expressing her surprise at how audiences here are “quite scared of asses and nipples”.
“I do not know why. So weird people,” she told Radio Times magazine in 2018. “My parents were very cool and made sure we watched a lot of European movies growing up, so nudity was never a problem for me as long as it was done beautifully. “