Rachel Bilson Explains Why Rami Malek Made Her Delete a “Super-Nerdy” High School Photo

Apparently, Rami Malek isn’t as big of a fan of throwback Thursdays as his old high school friend Rachel Bilson.

Bilson explained on Monday’s episode of Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, that she had a surprisingly curt interaction with the Mr. Robot star two years ago over a teenage photo of the two of them she shared on her Instagram. “I had posted a throwback of us from our senior trip to New York, Broadway. We were super-nerdy, just the dorkiest picture of both of us,” she recalled of the 2019 post. “But I throw it up ’cause it’s funny, and I think it’s so important to be able to make fun of yourself, and he had like a gold chain, and I’m like, ‘Rami where’d you get the gold chain?’ Whatever. So I’m just being funny, we were good friends.” The stars attended Notre Dame High School together in Sherman Oaks, California.

But The O.C. actress quickly realized they might not be quite as good of friends as she previously thought after she received a private message from Malik asking her to remove the photo immediately. “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,’” she said, adding, “I was like, ‘Oh, shit! OK.’ I get really hot and start sweating. I’m all nervous, like, ‘Oh God! What did I do?’ He was a good friend, it’s a funny picture…you know? I don’t take myself that seriously.” So, not wanting to upset her childhood friend, Bilson promptly deleted the picture and sent him a warm reply saying that she hoped he would win the best actor Oscar he was nominated for at the time, but she never heard back.

“I was super-bummed because he was always so nice and we were good friends, and I’m a big fan of not taking yourself seriously, especially at that level of fame and talent,” she continued. “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.” She added that she also got a message from Malek’s stylist explaining that he didn’t like the picture because he didn’t think he looked good in it. “She was like, ‘Well, it’s not a great picture of him.’ OK, I’m sorry. We were 16!” Bilson said. “It was what it was. It was right before the Oscars, and I remember [The O.C. creator] Josh Schwartz being like, ‘You did him dirty! He’s about to be nominated.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean? This was my friend; it’s a funny picture.’”

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