Shahs and Suits! Nema Vand revealed that he grew up with Meghan Markle in Los Angeles — and she once dated one of his close friends.
“If Meghan Markle listens to this — I’m gonna say this one time — Meghan, you really upset our friend Gabe,” the Shahs of Sunset star, 37, said on the “Reality Life With Kate Casey” podcast on Wednesday, May 13. “My friend Gabe that I grew up with dated Meghan in high school, and he said that after she got on Suits, they were friends for years afterward. And he was like, ‘Yeah, she kind of, like, ghosted me after Suits,’ and it, like, really hurt his feelings. I got the sense that Gabe really valued her friendship.”
Addressing the former actress, 38, directly, Vand said, “If you hear this, reach out to Gabe. You know who that is.”
The Bravo personality told listeners that he went to an all-boys high school and Markle attended one of its sister schools. He said they “were friends for a long time” because she was only one grade above him.
“Meghan was amazing, a woman among girls. Everyone was in love with her,” he recalled. “She was sweet and very kind. … She knew what she was doing. She toyed with our hearts masterfully.”
Vand then shared a story about a time he and Markle attended the same party: “She sat on my lap. She got nose-to-nose with me. For a 16-year-old guy, that is an emotional moment. She said to me in Farsi, ‘You are so beautiful.’ I asked her, ‘How do you know Farsi?’ She said, ‘I learned it for you.’ Then she walked away. … I’d like to hope that she tells that almost-makeout story as authentically as I do.”
The reality star remembered the Duchess of Sussex as “this really sweet, kind girl,” so he admitted on the podcast that he was surprised to hear about the drama that followed her and Prince Harry’s decision to step away from the British royal family in January.
“Seeing the toxicity of her breaking up the royal family is just, like, it boggles my mind,” he said. “These are people who don’t know her, never grew up with her, know nothing about her. And, you know, it’s kind of a larger version of what we deal with on Shahs. It’s, like, people really form these opinions without knowing a lot. So, I would just tell people to reserve judgment on that because she’s OK. She’s a good person.”
After high school, Markle married movie director Trevor Engelson in 2011. They divorced two years later, and she tied the knot with Harry, 35, in 2018. The couple share 12-month-old son Archie.
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