Fran Drescher Beau Shiva Ayyadurai Didn’t ‘Invent’ Email

Fran Drescher has a new boyfriend, tech guy Shiva Ayyadurai. According to many, Drescher’s boyfriend “invented” email.

But it’s not really true.

Fran Drescher’s boyfriend owns the copyright to a program called “EMAIL” that he wrote as a teen in 1978. A copy of it can be found on his Web site, entitled “VA Shiva, Inventor of Email.”

Owning a copyright on a program called “email” and claiming to have invented the protocol are two different things. Fran Drescher may want to check out Al Gore, since he invented the Internet (Gore never actually claimed that).

The fact is electronic messaging predates Fran Drescher’s boyfriend’s contributions to the tech world, since he was only 7-years-old when the first message was sent from one computer to another on ARPANET, the U.S. Defense Department’s precursor to the Internet.

This seems to matter very little to Fran Drescher.

Because it shouldn’t.

Drescher looks ecstatic on Shiva Ayyadurai’s arm and hopefully they’re happy together. Fran and her man look great together, based on all the pictures (in which he looks like a James Bond villain).

But accuracy and clarity are still important. As Gizmodo points out, “creating a type of airplane named AIRPLANE doesn’t make you Wilbur Wright.”

What do you think of Fran Drescher’s new boyfriend? What is your favorite Fran Drescher role? Is Fran Drescher aging well?