Actor Simon Rex says he was offered $70,000 by unnamed UK tabloids to say he slept with Meghan Markle

• Simon Rex said that tabloids offered him money to say that he and Meghan Markle slept together.
• He refused the offer, saying that Markle later wrote him a thank-you note.

Actor Simon Rex, who stars in the March film "Red Rocket," told The Guardian that unnamed British tabloids offered him $70,000 to say that he had slept with the Duchess of Sussex.

Rex and Meghan Markle appeared together in an episode of the sitcom "Cuts" in 2005, and according to The Guardian, the pair only shared a platonic lunch during that time. Later, he said multiple unnamed UK tabloids offered him money to say that they had slept together, an offer that he refused, the publication reports.

"I was broke as fuck! I really needed the money," Rex told The Guardian's Ryan Gilbey. "But I'll be on food stamps before I do that."

Rex told The Guardian that the duchess wrote him a thank-you letter for his refusal.

"It's nice to know there are still good people," Markle wrote in the letter, Rex told the publication.

The actor spoke about the incident once again on Twitter on Friday.

"This is true," he wrote in a tweet. "And I framed the thank you letter she wrote me. She has very nice penmanship btw."

Markle has had a strained relationship with the British tabloids since she started dating Prince Harry in 2016. Speaking in the ITV documentary "Harry and Meghan: An African Journey," which aired in the UK in 2019, Markle said some friends warned her not to date the prince because "the British tabloids will destroy your life."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex cut off all contact with British tabloids The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and Daily Mirror after their step back from royal duties in April 2020. In an open letter to the publications, the couple said they no longer wished to "offer themselves up as currency for an economy of clickbait and distortion."

Speaking during their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March last year, the couple said the tabloids' racist treatment of Markle was a factor in their departure from the UK. It's something Harry previously spoke about in 2016 when the couple first started dating. In an official statement, the prince condemned the press over the "racial undertones" he identified in articles written about Markle.

Representatives for the Duchess of Sussex and Simon Rex did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.