Jerry O'Connell didn't just look like gentleman on Watch What Happens Live Wednesday—he acted like one, too! The suited up star was asked what he thought about E! News host Giuliana Rancic's recently released memoir, Going Off Script: How I Survived a Crazy Childhood, Cancer, and Clooney's 32 On-Screen Rejections, which debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List in three different categories.
"We dated, and then we didn't date, and I was in the book. I didn't think that much of it. She's a very nice girl," O'Connell said of Rancic.
Andy Cohen asked, "Did she sell down the river a little bit?" The Living on Love actor didn't take the bait. "I don't want to say anything negative. She's a very nice girl. We had a very fun time. It was decades ago. I don't believe cell phones were used then," he joked. "It was like horse and buggy! It was a while ago."
O'Connell then reiterated, "She's a very nice girl."
In her memoir, Rancic recalled meeting O'Connell at the W Hotel in San Diego—and how he cheated on her with the Spice Girls' Geri Halliwell. "I was being two-timed for one of the lesser Spices?" she asked. Rancic wrote that O'Connell told her, "'Yeah, I know. I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened.' He had as much emotion as the customer-service representative who tells you your bags missed the flight."
O'Connell made amends, and the two even talked marriage.
At Maxim's 100 Hottest Women party rolled around in 2004, he set his sights on Rebecca Romijn. "Little did I know he was in the VIP area, talking up Rebecca. As a prelude to feeling up Rebecca," Rancic wrote.
A week later, O'Connell flew to Las Vegas and stopped returning her calls.
When Rancic confronted him at his home, he refused to buzz her up.
"Nope. Sorry, homegirl," he said. "Things change, but you take care, OK?"
Going Off Script is available now.
(E! and Bravo are both members of the NBCUniversal family.)