Hannah Simone. Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for A-Game Public Relations
Prince was known to be a fan of New Girl, but the cultural icon was said to be a particularly big fan of Hannah Simone, who played Cece.
The actress, now 44, mentioned the episode while speaking to costume designer Debra McGuire on the October 24 episode of Simone and Lamorne Morris‘ New Girl rewatch podcast “The Mess Around.”
“The reason he wanted to do it is because he had a crush on our little Hannah,” McGuire said, referring to the late singer, who died in 2016 of an accidental fentanyl overdose.
“Yeah. He tried for a very long time,” Simone said, referring to Prince’s interest in her. “He tried for a very long time to find a way to be in the same room together.”
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Simone, who has been married to husband Jesse Giddings since 2016, said that she didn’t reciprocate those romantic feelings. “I was not interested in that way,” Simone said. “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.”
The “Purple Rain” singer appeared on the hit Fox sitcom (which aired from 2011 to 2018) in a season 3 episode, which premiered right after Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014. The episode featured Prince helping Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess (Zooey Deschanel) work through some relationship drama — but he was really there for his scene with Simone’s character in which they played ping-pong.
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“Apparently, with people that he really likes to have that quality time with, he liked to play ping-pong,” Simone said. “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 final scene of the episode shows Prince playing table tennis with Cece, but the crew made sure it wasn’t shot until they had all the footage of the icon they needed.
“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.’ And so we saved it for the end.”
The issue, however, was that Simone didn’t really feel like playing games at the end of a long shoot.
“And the thing that I’ll never [forget] is: I don’t play ping-pong, I’m not a good ping-pong player,” she said. “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 a possible romance was off the table, the episode did spark a friendship between Simone and Prince. In a May 2020 Instagram caption, she said they had a “unique” connection.
“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.. 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.”
