Rachel Bilson Says She and Rami Malek Have Cleared the Air After Instagram Drama

Rami Malek and Rachel Bilson
Dominique Charriau/WireImage and P. Lehman / Barcroft Media via Getty Images

The actress shared that she and the Oscar winner have since reconnected and 'totally fine.'

It's all good between Rachel Bilson and Rami Malek.

The former O.C. star shared that after the Oscar winner asked her to remove an old photo of the two on her Instagram, they have since reconnected and are "good."

"Rami and I have actually talked. Since that came out, he connected with me and we're all good," she said in the latest episode of the LadyGang podcast. "He was so sweet and we're totally fine now, and we talked about it and we're good."

Back in early 2019, Bilson shared a throwback pic of her with the actor as teenagers on a school trip. She later revealed that Malek asked her to remove the photo from her Instagram account. She did and apologized, but never heard back from him.

"I was so mortified though. I was having a panic attack, I had to go to therapy that day and I was like, 'I'm having anxiety. I did not want this to resurface in this way. I feel so bad. Oh my god, Rami is going to think I'm doing this again and everything,'" she told the three hosts, before adding that the two are in a good place.

"But it actually turned out to be a good thing for reasons. We were able to reconnect and make it better and everything's great," she said. "He was so gracious and I totally understood where he was coming from and he understood me and I was just so happy we were able to squash it and move on. I get it and I totally understood. And he knew I wasn't doing it with any ill intentions."

Bilson first shared the story last month on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast. The actress said the two had been friends in high school and didn't think much of posting "the dorkiest picture of both of us."

"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 recalled. "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.'" 

She added that she was embarrassed by her former classmate's response and immediately took it down. Bilson explained that it wasn't the fact that he was in the photo, instead more of how he looked in it.

"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!" she said. "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."

In other Bilson news, she and O.C. co-star Melinda Clarke reunited for a new podcast, Welcome to the OC, B**ches!, about their hit series, and interviewed each other for ET. During their chat, the two agreed that they would be up for a reboot.

"A reboot would be awesome," Bilson said. "I think that's in the hands of [creators and executive producers] Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. There's still a ways to go, so maybe they'll figure it out! That'd be fun."

See more in the video.

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