‘New Girl’ star Hannah Simone reveals Prince had ‘crush’ on her: ‘He tried for a very long time’

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Hannah Simone has disclosed that late singer Prince had a crush on her.

The two had worked together in an episode of ‘New Girl’. Though Prince liked the hit Fox sitcom, he agreed to make a guest appearance because he was smitten by the now 44-year-old actress, who played Cece Parekh in 'New Girl', as reported by Us Weekly. 'The New Girl' aired from 2011 to 2018.

On Simone and Lamorne Morris' 'New Girl' rewatch podcast ‘The Mess Around’, the show's costume designer Debra McGuire teased, “The reason he wanted to do it is because he had a crush on our little Hannah.”

Hannah Simone was not interested in Prince

Hannah Simone agreed to this saying, “Yeah. He tried for a very long time. He tried for a very long time to find a way to be in the same room together.”

But she also noted that she did not feel the same for him. “I was not interested in that way. Love a Prince song. Happy to put on a Prince record. I was not interested in anything else. So I was never in the same room with Prince,” she stated.

Simone also disclosed that the multi-instrumentalist “was like a teenage boy who showed up at my job, which was really funny.”

Prince wanted to play ping-pong with Hannah Simone

Prince appeared in a Season 3 episode of 'New Girl' in 2014. The episode featured Prince helping Nick , played byJake Johnson, and Jess, played by Zooey Deschanel, work through some relationship drama.  

He also played ping-pong with Hannah Simone’s character, Cece.

Simone shared about Prince, "Apparently, with people that he really likes to have that quality time with, he liked to play ping-pong. It was like 5 in the morning, they had to write in the tag [scene for the end credits], ’cause how were they going to incorporate ping-pong into the show?”

“And they had to write this tag where Prince would get his request, which was: He wanted to play ping-pong with me,” Simone said.

However, the showmakers did not shoot the ping-pong scene before getting all the required footage of the music icon.

The ‘Killing Gunther’ star said, “They saved it as the last thing that we shot, cause they were low-key scared that if we shot that early, he would be — he’s Prince. So he could be like, ‘OK, I’m gonna go now.’ And so we saved it for the end.”

Though nothing romantic happened between Simone and Prince, they became good friends.

Prince and Hannah Simone shared a ‘unique lovely friendship’

In a May 2020 post on Instagram, she wrote, “This is the only photo I took during the Prince episode of New Girl. I had been called to set and decided to hide in the back of the room because of all of the natural mayhem that occurs when you have a living legend just walking around.”

She continued, “It was about 4 am and I was curled up in a corner behind slews of background actors who were waiting to shoot a big party scene and then the seas parted and Prince walked though and came and stood in front of me. He said ‘How are you?’"

“And I replied like the sweet angel I am ‘I’M TIRED.’ And he said ‘Well then tonight, I’ll dream for you.’ He then evaporated and I took this photo..”

Simone added, “Hours later he reappeared and taught me to play ping pong and it became the beginning of one of the most unique lovely friendships I’ve ever had.”