The OC star Rachel Bilson has shared part deux of the great picture debacle of 2021, otherwise known as that time Academy Award winner Rami Malek told her to wipe a picture of them from her Instagram. This time, however, we have a happy ending.
Long story, short: a few years ago, Bilson posted a throwback picture of herself and Malek to Instagram and then he quite bluntly asked her to delete it. To be fair, he just didn’t like it and he is super private. So then Bilson nuked it and they never spoke again… until now.
Appearing on the LadyGang podcast this week, Bilson said Malek reached out to her after the whole thing went stupid viral last month. More on that in a tick.
“Rami and I actually have talked since that came out,” she said.
“He connected with me, and we’re all good. He, you know, was so sweet and we’re totally fine and we talked about it and we’re good.
“He was so gracious, and I totally understand where he was coming from and he understood me. And I was just so happy we were able to squash it and, like, move on.”
So, the story goes that last month on the Dax Shephard and Monica Padman podcast, Armchair Expert, Bilson opened up about the time Malek asked her to nuke the throwback photo from Instagram.
During the 2019 awards season, while Malek was absolutely cleaning up for his role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Bilson posted the throwback picture to celebrate how far he’s come.
“Hey @ramimalek where’d you get that gold chain?” she commented at the time about their ’90s fit.
For what it’s worth, Bilson said they were good mates back in the day. The pair attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California, which sounds just a tad fancy, if you ask me.
“Rami was a good friend of mine,” she told Shepard. “We were [in] the same crew. We did the Crucible together senior year, we were in the leads in it together – all these things.”
But, uh, after posting the pic, Bilson said Malek reached out to her directly to tell her to delete it.
“I don’t usually check my DMs on Instagram,” she said. “Maybe a week goes by and I actually look and I have a message from Rami. But it wasn’t like, ‘Hey! How are you?’ It was straight to: ‘I would really appreciate it if you take that down. I’m a really private person.’”
Oof.
Malek doesn’t have Instagram anymore, by the way.
“I was like, I guess I should’ve found something more flattering. But I removed it and I even wrote to him a really nice message: ‘I’m so sorry. Go get the Oscar! You’re doing amazing.’”
Bilson said she felt really shitty about the entire situation, especially because she didn’t want to seem like a dickhead for posting a throwback photo he didn’t like, but it’s all water under the bridge now.
The actor told LadyGang that she really didn’t expect things to become as big as it did after she shared the story on Armchair Expert, but that’s the internet (Twitter) baby!
