Young Royals’ Edvin Ryding tells fans to ‘stop making comments’ about his physical appearance
Young Royals star Edvin Ryding says comments on appearance make him ‘uncomfortable’. (Getty)
Young Royals star Edvin Ryding has taken to social media to ask people to “stop making comments” about his physical appearance after posting a new look to his Instagram.
The 20-year-old Swedish actor has cultivated a devoted fanbase while portraying the closeted Prince Wilhelm in Netflix’s hit LGBTQ+ series Young Royals. Ryding stars opposite Omar Rudberg, who plays his love interest, and fellow student, Simon. The two will reunite on screen for the highly anticipated third and final season in 2024.
Since Young Royals began airing in 2021, Ryding has gained 2.4 million Instagram followers and almost 500k followers on X (formerly known as Twitter).
On Saturday (28 October), the young Netflix star posted a series of images to Instagram showcasing his surprise new moustache, which led fans to flock to the comments. Although many shared their enthusiasm for the fresh look, there were also a slew of nasty remarks from internet trolls.
On Monday (30 October) Ryding addressed the negative, and vitriolic, backlash in a post on X. “Hello, I’d like to kindly ask you to stop making comments on my physical appearance. It’s making me uncomfortable. Thank you,” he wrote.
Many shared their support for Ryding across social media. Under his original Instagram post, one fan wrote: “Just ignore the negativity. Your happiness and health is the most important thing. It’s your life not anyone else’s’.”
Another added: “I just wanted to commend you for speaking up for yourself. This younger generation of young men are finding their voice and using it to express their feelings and boundaries in a way that I admire so much.”
“Making nasty comments about the way people look is one of the most evil things you can do and it says a lot more about you than you’d think,” one person said on X.
In an exclusive interview with PinkNews last year, Ryding spoke about the importance of portraying normal teen bodies on mainstream TV.
He recalled people coming up to him on the street and saying they “feel seen by the way we portrayed humanity. It’s OK to look different. It’s OK to have acne, it’s OK to have different kinds of body sizes” which was “very moving”.
Young Royals creator Lisa Ambjorn echoed Ryding, and made it an important part of the casting process.
“Just from a personal experience,” she said, “there’s been a lot of great youth dramas made in Sweden for the Swedish audience before, but as a teenager, I never felt like anyone looked like me.
“Even if they had a problem I could relate to, I would think, ‘Yeah, but you look like a supermodel. So even if you have this problem, things are gonna go pretty alright.’ I sometimes call it British casting where people actually look like humans that you live next door to. And that makes it much more believable.”
Young Royals season one and two are streaming Netflix. There is currently no release date for season three but we have received our first, chemistry-filled, teaser.
