Meghan Markle says that her time on Deal or No Deal left her feeling objectified and reduced to the stereotype of a bimbo.
The Duchess of Sussex reflected on her experience on the game show during the latest episode of her podcast Archetypes, where she explored labels like “bimbo” and “dumb blonde” with guests Paris Hilton and Iliza Shlesinger. While introducing the topic, Markle shared that she felt forced to take on that label when she did a stint as a “briefcase girl.”
She was recently reminded of the experience when she was watching TV, which she pointed out “is a rarity when you have two children under the age of 4,” referring to her son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 1, whom she shares with husband Prince Harry. That part of her previous life in 2006 was “fascinating,” she said.
“I had studied acting in college at Northwestern University and like a lot of the other women standing on stage with me acting was what I was pursuing. So while Deal or No Deal wasn’t about acting, I was still really grateful as an auditioning actress to have a job that could pay my bills. I had income, I was part of the union, I had health insurance, it was great,” she explained. “And yet, I had also studied international relations in college, and there were times when I was on set at Deal or No Deal and thinking back to my time working as an intern at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina in Buenos Aires and being in the motorcade with the secretary of Treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain.”
While her job on the show consisted of her “holding said briefcase on stage alongside 25 other women doing the same,” she felt that she was “being valued for something quite the opposite” than she was during her college years. She even went on to detail just how prominent the appearance of the women on stage was.
“Before the tapings of the show, all the girls we would line up and there were different stations for having your lashes put on or your extensions put in or the padding in your bra. We were even given spray tan vouchers each week because there was a very cookie cutter idea of precisely what we should look like,” she recalled. “It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains.”
Markle also revealed that the woman running the show would keep an eye on the women from backstage and one time yelled at Markle to “suck it in” referring to her body. “I’ll never forget,” Markle said.
Ultimately, it was that treatment that led her to quit the show.
“I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel, which was not smart. And by the way, I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me. But that wasn’t the focus of why we were there,” she continued. “I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach knowing that I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage. I didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks and little substance, and that’s how it felt for me at the time — being reduced to this specific archetype.”
The mother of two later went on to share her hopes for her own daughter saying, “I want my Lili to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things.”
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