'Normal People' producers demand Pornhub remove 22-minute sex scene compilation: 'Deeply disrespectful'
Hulu's hit show 'Normal People' managed to raise quite a few eyebrows with an abundance of sex scenes. The twelve-part series which explores the complex relationship between Marianne Sheridan's (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell Waldron (Paul Mescal), has been praised for its realistic depiction of love and sex. While it has been critically acclaimed for the realistic sex, someone decided to take advantage of it, and compiled all the steamy scenes from the series into a 22-minute video and put it up on the popular adult website PornHub.
The video was shared on PornHub last week, and has been taken down upon the show's producers' request. The executive producer of the show, Ed Guiney said, "We're hugely disappointed that excerpts from the series of Normal People have been used in this way. It's both a violation of copyright and more importantly, it's deeply disrespectful to the actors involved and to the wider creative team. We have taken appropriate steps to require that the content be removed from the platform with immediate effect."
PornHub's vice president Corey Price told Variety that the content has been removed from the website in accordance with the producers' request. He said, "'Pornhub is fully compliant with the law. We respect all copyright requests and as soon as we become aware of the existence of these types of videos on our site, we have them removed.."
Although the producers of the show were genuinely surprised and disappointed on seeing the show's clips being circulated on PornHub, fans weren't even remotely surprised. Several fans had expressed that the show was so erotic that it could have easily featured on a website like PornHub. A fan tweeted, "#NormalPeople This is like production for PornHub!" Another fan wrote, "I’m going to need a sub-genre called 'two people who love and care for each other' on pornhub after this #NormalPeople." "One more season and Porn Hub will have an Irish section #NormalPeople," joked a fan. "Haven't watched #NormalPeople but I'm led to believe I can just watch the summary on #Pornhub," commented a fan.
Despite the massive adult content on the show, 'Normal People' has been downloaded over 23 million times. The second episode alone features 11 minutes of sex between the lead characters. According to sources, the writers wanted to stay true to the book, and since the book had a lot of sex, the show too featured it heavily. The showrunners reportedly hired an intimacy coach to ensure that the cast was comfortable while filming the intimate scenes.