Meghan Markle and Simon Rex met when they were both on the set of the same television show years ago. But once Meghan started dating Prince Harry, British tabloids reportedly began swirling around Simon in a bid to get him to exaggerate his relationship with the future duchess.
Now Simon is setting the record straight once and for all. Far from being an ex-boyfriend of Meghan's, he says that the two were just casual friends. "Nothing happened. We never even kissed," he said, per Cosmopolitan.
"We hung out once in a very non-datey way. She was just someone I had met on a TV show and we got lunch," he added. "That was the extent of it."
Simon even gave an interview to the British paper The Sun back in 2018 and tried to explain this to the reporters. They weren't interested, however. He goes on to say that, "When that story broke, a couple British tabloids offered to pay me a lot of money to say a lie that we actually hooked up."
Simon adds that there was no way he was taking the money, even though it was a lot. "I said no to a lot of money because I didn’t feel right lying and [expletive] up the royal [expletive] family." When asked, he also gave a dollar amount. "It was a lot of money, man. I think they offered me like $70,000."
Of course, this is just one set of stories that have come out about the horrific treatment that Meghan has suffered from the British press. It often seems as if British tabloids and papers were determined to vilify her from the start. Last October, Meghan even spoke about "warnings" she received from friends in the UK about what might happen if she got serious with Harry.
She told ITV, "It's hard. I don't think anybody could understand that, but in all fairness, I had no idea — which probably sounds difficult to understand here — but when I first met my now-husband, my friends were really happy because I was so happy, but my British friends said to me, 'I'm sure he's great, but you shouldn't do it, because the British tabloids will destroy your life.'"
And Meghan goes on to say that even despite the best warnings, she wasn't convinced. "And I very naively … we're American, we don't have that there, 'What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not in tabloids!' I didn't get it. So yeah, it's been complicated."
Since Meghan and Harry's very public decision to step back from royal duties, numerous media outlets and personalities have spoken about the treatment that the pair suffered at the hands of the British media. Television host Trevor Noah spoke about the various times Meghan was abused in a racist way.
He also spoke about when Princess Michael of Kent infamously wore a racist brooch when meeting Meghan: "I wonder if this woman has a cabinet full of racist broaches for different occasions."
He also pointed out that at one time, both Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle were discussed in the media for doing the same thing: eating avocados. When Kate did it, it was fine, because she received the avocados as a "gift" to deal with morning sickness … but when Meghan did it, she was somehow singularly responsible for the devastation of the entire planet.
In the article, the outraged Brit wrote, "The campaigning duchess may be passionate when it comes to racial equality and female empowerment, but for someone who wants to save the planet, she’s committed something of a faux pas with avocados."
Which … is kind of a leap, don't you think?
Now that Meghan and Harry are in Canada with Archie, many are hoping that the Canadian press will lay off the family of three. Janice Neil, who is chair of the school of journalism at at Ryerson University in Toronto, says that should happen. "[Canada] is a completely different environment, and that is possibly something that Meghan observed when she lived here before."
Janice also explained that celebrity and royals gossip is the norm in the UK, but it's not really the case in Canada to the same degree. She also said that it's surprising that Britain still struggles in this area. "[The country] has shockingly learned nothing from a couple decades of criticism … starting with how [they chased] Princess Diana."
Author Yomi Adegoke, a journalist for The Guardian, agrees. She wrote, "British racism is often coy and coded, but when it comes to Meghan there was no need to read between the lines. The hate was in the headlines, which referred to the Los Angeles neighbourhood where she grew up as ‘gang-scarred‘ and her role editing a racially diverse edition of Vogue as ‘divisive.'"
Human rights advocate Amira Elghawaby says that she's not sure about Canada. While the country is great, she says there's still plenty of work to do, particularly as many newsrooms can't boast a lot of ethnic diversity. "They won’t be fully immune from that here in Canada, but it certainly won’t be as toxic as the culture in the U.K."
