While telling the story to Sheperd, the 39-year-old noted, "Rami was a good friend of mine. We were [in] the same crew. We did The Crucible together senior year, we were the leads in it together — all these things. We kind of kept in contact a little bit."
However, Bilson quickly received a direct message from Malek asking her to take it down, People reports, and it was much colder than she would've expected. "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. 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.'"
The unexpected DM sent the mother of one into a tailspin, even 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."
After Malek's stylist told her that it wasn't a good picture of him and that she "did him dirty right before the Oscars," Bilson quickly apologized. "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.' And I never hear anything back, which is fine. But I was super bummed because he was always so nice and we were good friends."
