Meghan Markle “Objectified”

On Tuesday’s (October 18th) episode of the Archetypes podcast, Meghan Markle spoke with Paris Hilton about the stereotype of “the bimbo,” opening up about her time on the game show Deal or No Deal.

The Duchess of Sussex appeared as a briefcase model on the second season of the show, an experience that she is “grateful” for. However, Markle said that while she was on set, she would look back on her college internship at the U.S. Embassy in Argentina, where she was “valued specifically for my brain.” On Deal or No Deal, she said, “I was being valued for something quite the opposite.”

“There was a very cookie-cutter idea of precisely what we should look like,” Markle said. “It was solely about beauty, and not necessarily about brains.” She added that she’d “never forget” how one of the producers on the show, who couldn’t pronounce her last name, would yell, “Mar-kell suck it in!”

“I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me, but that wasn’t the focus of why we were there,” Markle said. “I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach, knowing 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.”