Culture

Meghan Markle Claims She Was "Reduced To A Bimbo" When She Was A Briefcase Model On Game Show 'Deal Or No Deal'

Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry, is hosting a podcast series on Spotify called "Archetypes" and her latest episode features a conversation with Paris Hilton. She says she felt objectified while working on the NBC show "Deal or No Deal" and subsequently quit.

By Gina Florio2 min read
Meghan marble
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Since beginning her Spotify podcast, Meghan has made some viral claims about herself and her position in the world. She told Mariah Carey that she was only "treated like a black woman" after she married Prince Harry and she claimed that she was an "ugly duckling" growing up and was often seen as a "loner." But in her most recent episode with Paris Hilton, she brought up her past job working on the game show "Deal or No Deal."

Meghan Markle Claims She Was "Reduced to a Bimbo" When She Was on Game Show 'Deal or No Deal'

From 2006 to 2007, Meghan was a "briefcase model" on the American game show "Deal or No Deal," which was hosted by Howie Mandel. The player is presented with 26 sealed briefcases containing any amount from one penny to $1 million and they must eliminate the cases one by one until they get to their final choice. Meghan was one of the women who opened up the briefcase to display what's inside.

But her brief stint on the show doesn't harbor positive memories for her apparently. She told Paris that although she was "really grateful" to have the job at the time, she didn't like the fact that there was "little substance" to her role.

“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 word ‘bimbo,'” she claims. “By the way I was surrounded by smart women … but that wasn’t the focus.”

All the women who were holding the briefcases wore matching dresses and Meghan revealed that they all lined up to get their makeup, hair extensions, bra padding, and even spray tan vouchers. There was a "cookie-cutter idea" of how all the women should look and Meghan says "it was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains." Allegedly, someone kept telling her to "suck it in."

Meghan told Paris that she spent some time in a motorcade with a politician in Argentina while studying international relations and she realized that the job didn't match with her values. She decided to quit. Now Meghan wants her daughter Lilibet "to aspire to be slightly higher."

“Yeah, I want my Lili to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things," she says.

Meghan didn't seem to mind being made into a beautiful princess for her wedding day to the royal prince, and that surely took an entire glam team to put together her hair, makeup, and dress. She also has never complained about the beauty and glamour that comes with Hollywood or the British royal family, but she sure does have a lot of opinions in retrospect about a job that she willingly chose on her own. What exactly did she expect when she took on the job of briefcase model on a game show?