Earlier this year, the internet\u2019s boyfriend, Jonathan Bailey, broke the internet\u2019s heart by announcing his retirement. Could it be true that the star of Bridgerton, Wicked and Jurassic World Rebirth is really quitting this acting thing? Well, yes and no.<\/p>\n
In September, he broke the news that he was \u201cgoing to stop acting for a bit next year\u201d and focus on the Shameless Fund, a charity he founded in the hopes of raising money for LGBTQ+ initiatives. <\/p>\n
As Bailey explains in his Esquire interview, out tomorrow, he was at the end of his run of Richard II onstage and about to embark on the Jurassic press tour when he gave that interview. <\/p>\n
What to Read Next<\/p>\n
There were two films he could have proceeded to shoot, he explains, but The Shameless Fund was also \u201cbubbling away\u201d. He stepped away from the two films. And, more pressingly, he was cycling between Rome and Pisa for a friend\u2019s wedding when he spoke to the magazine.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result,\u201d he says, \u201cthere was an unfortunate misquote that said I\u2019d stopped acting for a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bailey continues: \u201cMy intention was to say, \u2018Next year I\u2019ll be back,\u2019 but yeah, the ripple effect was extraordinary.\u2019 My sister, who I\u2019m close to and lives in Australia, called me and said, \u201cWow, is everything OK? You\u2019ve given up?\u201d By Monday, the headlines were \u201cJonathan Bailey has quite acting\u201d. I learnt at that moment you can\u2019t control it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That little miscommunication led to bigger lessons. As Bailey says: \u201cIntegrity is so precious.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe only you have control over is how you show up in the world. How you show up to work and how you show up for your friends and family. And if there\u2019s alignment between what you say and how you act, there\u2019s a kind of throbbing sense of integrity.\u201d <\/p>\n
And just to clear things up, Bailey says, \u201cI\u2019ll definitely be back to work next year. I\u2019m not taking the whole of 2026 off.\u201d Maybe he will be able to buy a top-notch foreign sim card. <\/p>\n
The full interview will drop tomorrow, and the Esquire Winter issue is out 13 November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this year, the internet\u2019s boyfriend, Jonathan Bailey, broke the internet\u2019s heart by announcing his retirement. Could it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,1105,76414,1107,93,61,60,1135,76413],"class_list":{"0":"post-131033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-content-type-news","10":"tag-contentid-230f41c2-9f63-4168-9005-651dab93174f","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-locale-gb","16":"tag-shorttitle-wicked-2-jonathan-bailey-tells-the-true-story-behind-his-so-called-retirement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}