Users on TikTok are convinced that Meghan Markle-starring TV show Suits began the Roman Empire trend taking over the app.
The new trend on the app sees female users asking their male friends, family or partners how often they think about the Roman Empire.
The series of videos have found that the answer is a significant amount, and some have traced it back to a scene on Suits.
In the scene, Markle’s character Rachel Zane asks Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) what’s playing on his headphones.
“Uh, audiobook, ‘Fall of the Roman Empire,’” he responds, a sign to many on TikTok that this was the origin of the new trend.
@debodell
Men have to be stopped 😭 #romanempire #girlmath #menromanempire #suits #meganmarkle
♬ original sound – Deborah O’Dell
Elsewhere, an interview from 2018 has resurfaced in which Russell Brand bragged about “planting one” on Meghan Markle for a movie they starred in together.
During an appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, days before Markle’s wedding to Prince Harry, Brand was asked by host Andrea McLean if it was true he had “snogged” her. “As a matter of fact it is,” Brand replied. “But let me say before you get carried away with it. It’s because she was in a film that I was in, Get Him To The Greek.”
Brand explained that he didn’t know who Markle was at the time because she “wasn’t married to a royal person” so he “wasn’t paying attention”.
He added: “I don’t remember the film that much because I was still out of it. I think I planted one on her. It was scripted in a scene. I only know this because I think I saw a clip of it somewhere. So Meghan Markle, there we go.”
The resurfaced clip comes after Brand was accused of rape and sexual assault by four women between 2006 and 2013. The allegations were brought to light in a joint investigation conducted by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches.
Brand denied the allegations in a video, where he said all of his relationships were consensual.