Prince Allegedly Had a Crush on a ‘New Girl’ Star

Hannah Simone has revealed that Prince‘s memorable guest appearance on New Girl may have been motivated by a romantic interest in her. The revelation came during a discussion with costume designer Debra McGuire on the Oct. 24 episode of The Mess Around with Hannah and Lamorne, Simone’s rewatch podcast with co-star Lamorne Morris.

“The reason he wanted to do it is because he had a crush on our little Hannah,” McGuire disclosed about the late music icon, who passed away in 2016 from an accidental fentanyl overdose. Simone confirmed the pursuit, 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.”

The actress, now 44 and married to Jesse Giddings since 2016, made it clear she didn’t share those feelings. “I was not interested in that way,” Simone explained. “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. And then yeah, he was like a teenage boy who showed up at my job, which was really funny.”

Prince’s 2014 appearance on the Fox sitcom, which aired after Super Bowl XLVIII, included a unique request: a ping-pong scene with Simone. “Apparently, with people that he really likes to have that quality time with, he liked to play ping-pong,” she revealed. “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.”

The production team strategically scheduled the ping-pong scene for the end of filming. “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,” Simone explained. “So he could be like, ‘OK, I’m gonna go now.’” The actress added, “And the thing that I’ll never [forget] is: I don’t play ping-pong, I’m not a good ping-pong player. I was so tired. It had been a 20-something hour day, and I just slammed the shot. My body just went like, ‘We’re doing it.’ And then he was like — he genuinely did walk off, which was really funny.”

While previous cast accounts suggested Prince’s appearance was motivated by his interest in the show’s central romance between Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), these new details offer a different perspective. Johnson said on The Kelly Clarkson Show in 2022, “[Prince] wanted to live in the reality of the show, and he wanted Nick and Jess to be together. So, he said he’ll do the show if he could help them get together.”

Simone and Prince developed a “unique” friendship despite the initial awkwardness. In a May 2020 Instagram post, she shared a memorable 4 AM encounter: “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.. 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.”