Actor Zach Galifianakis’s sweet act of kindness for a homeless woman captured the hearts of fans, despite him attempting to keep it out of the limelight.

The Hangover star, 54, quietly paid for a formerly homeless woman’s rent for 27 years after the pair became friends when he was an aspiring actor.

Marie ‘Mimi’ Haist had been living in a laundromat in Santa Monica, California, for 20 years when she met Zach while he was trying to make it in Hollywood.

Things hadn’t always been this way for Mimi, who was born and raised in Los Angeles. She had previously been married with two children, but lost her home after divorcing her husband when he was unfaithful to her.

Mimi revealed that she began living in a van when she was 50 years old, but it was towed away after she ran out of money, leaving her sleeping on the streets.

On one very cold and rainy night, a janitor took pity on her and let her stay in the local laundromat until the morning, when she charmed the owner who allowed her to stay as long as she needed.

She would help people to do their laundry which made her enough money to afford food and drink.

Mimi had been living there for 20 years, sleeping on a plastic lawn chair between the washing machines and dryers, when she met Zach after helping him to wash his clothes while he was trying to make it as an actor in the 90s.

After the pair became friends and Zach found out about Mimi’s circumstances, he found her a comfortable apartment and began paying the rent for her, despite not yet having made it big himself.

Zach tried to keep his kind act out of the limelight. Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Although he tried to keep the generous gesture under the radar as much as possible, Zach even took Mimi as his date to the 2009 red carpet of The Hangover.

Mimi’s life was immortalized in the 2015 documentary, Queen Mimi, by filmmaker Yaniv Rokah, who discovered her while he was working as a barista at a coffee shop opposite the laundromat where she lived.