Before Rachel Bilson and Rami Malek were famous actors, they were high school classmates. The pair even starred in their school's rendition of The Crucible together. During a recent appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast, Bilson revealed the awkward moment when her old friend asked her to take down an throwback photo she shared of them on a school trip to New York City.
"Rami was a good friend of mine. We were in the same crew," Bilson recalled. "We did The Crucible together senior year. We were the leads in it...He's always been extremely talented, really an amazing actor, even in high school."
Though they grew apart over the years, Bilson thought it would be funny to post an old throwback photo of them when they were kids. She described the shot of her and Malek in New York City as "the dorkiest picture of both of us." After she posted the picture to her Instagram account, along with a self-deprecating caption, Malek sent her a direct message requesting she remove the post.
"I don't usually check my DMs on my Instagram and maybe a week goes by, and I actually look and I have a message from Rami," Bilson said. "But it wasn't like, 'Hey! How are you?' It was straight to, 'I would really appreciate if you take that down. I'm a really private person.' I was like 'oh, s**t, OK.' Like, I get really hot, I start sweating, and I'm all nervous. I'm like, 'Oh my god, what did I do?'"
Bilson shared the throwback right before Malek was about to receive his first Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. He would eventually go on to win the award, as well.
"I guess he didn't like the picture of himself, and I'm friends with his stylist and she was like, 'Well, it's not a great picture of him.' And I was like, 'OK, I'm sorry.' We were 16!" Bilson continued. Her close friend and producer of The O.C., Josh Schwartz, even told her "You did him dirty" after the whole debacle.
"I removed it, and I even wrote to him a really nice message like, 'I'm so sorry! Go get the Oscar! You're doing amazing.' And I never heard anything back, which is fine," she said. "I was super bummed because he was so nice, and we were good friends. I'm a big fan of not taking yourself seriously, especially at that level of fame and talent. But look, he wants to be super respected. It's his thing, so I respected it. I took it down. I was just a little bummed at how it was handled."
Photo: Getty