Simon Rex is continuing to clear up rumours that he once dated Meghan Markle.
The Red Rocket actor has confirmed a story shared on social media last week by Royal Suitor, a well-known royal Twitter account run by a freelance writer.
The account tweeted an excerpt of Simon’s interview with The Guardian from earlier this month, in which he said tabloids had offered him tens of thousands of dollars to lie and say he’d slept with Meghan, but he had refused to engage with the falsehood.
“UK tabloids offered [Simon Rex] $70K [around £53,000] to claim he had slept w/ Markle, w/ whom he appeared in ... the sitcom Cuts; their off-screen interactions never got further than one platonic lunch,” read the tweet’s abbreviated version of the excerpt.
The tweet also included a quote from Simon, who said: “I was broke as f*ck! I really needed the money. But I’ll be on food stamps before I do that.”
Simon quoted the tweet, writing, “This is true. And I framed the thank you letter she wrote me.”
In his interview with The Guardian, the actor said the framed note resides at his house in Joshua Tree.
“She has very nice penmanship btw,” Simon added in the tweet. That isn’t surprising since Meghan once made money as a calligrapher and a calligraphy teacher. She even worked on singer Robin Thicke and actor Paula Patton’s wedding invitations for their nuptials in 2005.
Simon first shared the story of his shady offer from the tabloids in 2020, during an appearance on the Hollywood Raw podcast. After the host asked him directly about dating Meghan for “a hot second,” the actor denied they ever had a relationship and set the record straight.
“Well, I’ll clear it up ― it wasn’t really dating her,” he said. “We hung out one time because we did a TV show together and nothing happened. We never even kissed. It was just, like, we hung out once in a very non-dating way, but you know how words can get spun into ‘We dated.’”
“She was just someone I met on a TV show and, like, we got lunch,” Simon added. “That was the extent of it, but it looked like it could be that we were dating. But nothing happened. Just to be clear.”
“A couple of British tabloids offered to pay me a lot of money to say a lie that we actually hooked up,” he added, saying the tabloids ― which he didn’t name ― offered to pay Rex $70,000 to tell the lie.
“And dude, I said no to a lot of money because I didn’t feel right lying and fucking up the Royal fucking Family,” Simon explained.
“I just said the truth, which was basically like, ‘Yeah, we hung out one time and got a bite to eat and like nothing happened,’ and took a lot less money for that.”