Fleabag may have left our TV screens forever, but our unholy lust for Andrew Scott’s ‘hot priest’ shows no sign of cooling.
Searches for the term ‘religious’ on Pornhub’s database of X-rated content have spiked since the BBC show returned at the beginning of March, the website revealed exclusively to HuffPost UK.
Scott joined the show’s cast of misfits at the start of the second series, since when his troubled man of the cloth sent the nation into something of a frenzy, prompting fevered debate as to whether his behaviour was sexy, controlling (“kneel!”) or even exploitative.
“What we wanted was to create a chemistry,” the actor explained before the first episode. “No matter what type of chemistry it was, we wanted these characters to have an extraordinary kind of connection.”
It seems that viewers certainly had an extraordinary kind of connection with him.
The show premiered on Monday 4 March – that evening searches for ’religious’ pornography spiked 162%, while priest and nun rose 103% and 145% respectively.
While Pornhub reports interest slightly cooling over the course of the series, it remains markedly higher than before Phoebe Waller-Bridge bought her ‘hot priest’ (and his silk robes) into viewers’ lives.
UK users drive the second highest amount of traffic per country (after the US) to the porn website, which has a daily average of 92 million visitors. So it’s possible that a cultural moment such as Fleabag could impact search trends.
Please note: spoilers for the second series follow below.
Attention on the BBC3 series reached fever pitch with the show’s finale this week. “To say series two of Fleabag has “grasped viewers” is like saying Godmother in the show is “not very nice,” wrote Rachel McGrath in her season round-up.
Among those sharing their favourite moments with HuffPost as the series wrapped, BBC broadcaster Emma Barnett said: “Phoebe Waller-Bridge has created the most unexpected and yet disarmingly (maybe disturbingly) erotic heart throb in Fleabag’s ‘sexy vicar’ ... Total panty ripper.”