Meghan Markle quit her 2006 job as a briefcase girl on “Deal or No Deal” because she felt she was being “reduced to a bimbo.”
The Duchess of Sussex reflected on her brief stint on the game show, admitting she was “really grateful” to have a job that could pay her bills but felt there was “little substance” to the role.
“I ended up quitting the show. I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage,” she said on the latest episode of her podcast, “Archetypes.”
“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.’”
Markle, 41, who spoke to Paris Hilton in the episode, reflected on studying international relations in college and riding in a motorcade with a politician in Argentina and came to the conclusion that the job didn’t align with her values.
“I was grateful for the job, but not about how it made me feel, which was not smart,” she said. “By the way, I was surrounded by smart women … but that wasn’t the focus.”
Markle said the women would “line up” to receive lashes, hair extensions, padding for their bras and even spray tan vouchers because production had a “cookie-cutter idea” of how they should look.
“It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains,” Markle recalled, adding that a woman kept telling her to “suck it in.”
Now a mother of two, Markle said she aspires for her daughter, Lilibet, to be known for her brains rather than her beauty.
“I want our daughter to aspire to be slightly higher,” Markle said. “Yeah, I want my Lili to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things.”
Markle appeared on “Deal or No Deal” from 2006 to 2007 before becoming a regular on USA Network’s “Suits” in 2011. She married Prince Harry in May 2018 and left the series — and acting — altogether.
Ahead of the now-US-based couple’s royal wedding, “Deal or No Deal” host Howie Mandel admitted he didn’t remember Markle’s time on the series.