The 'Red Rocket' actor says that tabloids offered him thousands of dollars to lie about his relationship with the duchess.
Simon Rex has revealed the sweet gesture Meghan Markle extended to him after he denied a request from U.K. tabloids. In a new interview with The Guardian, the Red Rocket actor said that U.K. tabloids offered him thousands of dollars to lie about his relationship with the Duchess of Sussex, during the time they appeared together on the 2005 series Cuts.
“I was broke as f**k! I really needed the money,” he told the outlet about the alleged bribe. “But I’ll be on food stamps before I do that.”
Rex said that in return for not taking the bait, the former Suits actress wrote him a thank-you letter, which he says he has framed in his home. “She said: ‘It’s nice to know there are still good people,’” Rex told The Guardian.
Rex spoke publicly about the tabloid request for the first time in 2020 during an appearance on the Hollywood Raw podcast. “We just hung out one time, because we did a TV show together,” he said while making it clear they never dated. "She was someone that I met on a TV show, and we met for lunch and that was the extent of it.”
The Hotel California actor added at the time, “I said no to a lot of money because I didn’t feel like f**king up the royal family.”
In December, Markle, who is married to Prince Harry, reached a victory in her legal battle with the publishers of the Mail on Sunday, Associated Papers. After a lengthy battle, the Court of Appeal in London ruled in her favor.
The decision means the case will not proceed to trial and that Markle is now due financial damages as well as a public apology that appeared on the front page of the Mail on Sunday and the homepage of the Mail Online.
The case originally stemmed from the Mail on Sunday printing parts of a private letter she wrote to her estranged father in 2018. After the victory, the mother of two spoke out.
"This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what's right," Markle said in a statement at the time. "While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create."
