The actor Wendell Pierce reveals today he warned Meghan Markle, his former co-star on the legal drama Suits, that her world would be “forever changed” by her relationship with Prince Harry.

Pierce, 55, who played Robert Zane, a successful lawyer and father to Markle’s character, Rachel Zane, on the show, worked alongside Markle for four years after joining the series in 2013. “It was great,” he recalled. “She’s a really good actress and was always sweet, always kind.”

Appearing on Desert Island Discs, Pierce told the host, Lauren Laverne, that he had saved the Duchess of Sussex from being photographed wearing a costume ring after filming scenes in which her character became engaged. “We were shooting one day, before the engagement. In the show she was engaged, and she had a ring on. We were about to get out of the car and I said: ‘Don’t get out. Give us the ring. There’s a paparazzo down the street. If a photograph got out with you with a ring on it, it would explode all over the world.’”

Pierce said that he had not seen Markle since filming ended. “When we had the final scenes I said: ‘Listen, your world is going to be forever changed, and no matter where you are, you can always know that you have a friend in me. That was the last time I got to speak to her – and it was great.”

Pierce, who is known for his role as Detective “Bunk” Moreland in The Wire, is currently starring in Death of a Salesman in the West End. He was born during the civil rights movement in New Orleans. His father was a second world war veteran and his mother was a teacher. The family home was flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a devastation he described as “very painful” and much like “losing a member of a family”.

Pierce said the trauma for his parents was unbearable. “I have seen my parents in grief once before when my older brother died. He died about five years before. I saw them just become these diminutive fragile souls. And then I saw it again that day when I brought them to the house.” Pierce rebuilt it from the inside out. “I knew that if I demolished the home it probably would demolish them.”