Simon Rex is continuing to clear up rumors that he once dated Meghan Markle.
Rex 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 Rex’s interview with The Guardian from earlier this month, in which Rex 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 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. “‘I was broke as fvck! I really needed the money. But I’ll be on food stamps before I do that.’”
Rex quoted the tweet, writing, “This is true.”
“And I framed the thank you letter she wrote me,” he added. 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,” Rex 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.
Rex 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 “Red Rocket” actor denied they had a relationship and set the record straight.
“Well, I’ll clear it up ― it wasn’t really dating her,” the actor 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,” Rex 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,” he 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.”