'New Girl' Star Hannah Simone Opens up About Prince's "Crush" on Her: "I Was Not Interested"

Sometimes, the behind-the-scenes lore of a TV show is even more juicy than the contents of the show itself. Take music legend Prince's appearance on New Girl, for example. Yeah, it's pretty wacky and cool that he showed up to save Nick and Jess's relationship. But as it turns out, the story behind his appearance on the sitcom is way more interesting ... and kind of awkward.

On a recent podcast episode, Hannah Simone (who played Cece Parekh) talked about her experience with Prince being on the show, revealing that he had something of a "crush" on her. She, on the other hand, wasn't interested.

Here's how it all went down.

On an episode of the Mess Around with Hannah and Lamorne podcast, a show hosted by Hannah and her New Girl co-star Lamorne Morris, the actor behind Cece revealed some interesting tidbits about Prince's cameo on the show.

When asked if it was true that Prince wanted to appear on the show because he had a crush on her, she confirmed the rumor.

"Yeah, he tried for a very long time," she said, laughing. "He tried for a very long time to find a way to be in the same room together. And ... 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."

With Prince's heartthrob status, one might think that having him vie for your attention would be exciting — but Hannah felt otherwise.

"It's like a teenage boy, he showed up at my job," she joked awkwardly.

She also revealed that his supposed crush on her was the reason for the tense ping-pong scene between the two at the end of his New Girl episode.

"Apparently, with people he really likes ... to have that quality time with, he liked to play ping-pong," she explained. For this reason, the writers ended up incorporating ping-pong into the episode's tag. "They had to write this tag where Prince would get his request. He wanted to play ping-pong with me."

She even said that they saved the scene to be shot last because the writers were worried that if Prince got what he wanted right away, he would leave without filming any additional scenes: "He's Prince! He could be like, 'OK, I'm gonna go now.'"

The whole ordeal seems to have been pretty awkward for Hannah, and viewers in the comments could definitely sense the tension.

"From the second it was brought up, she looked so uncomfortable. I feel so bad," one user wrote. Another said, "Pretty creepy and uncool, Prince. But Hannah, you were masterful."

Others accused the show's writers and producers of using Hannah as "bait" in order to get Prince to feature on the series. One fan even said that they'll likely skip watching that episode from now on.