For aspiring actors desperate for a break in Hollywood, landing a job on a daytime television show is a well-trodden path.
Back in 2006, the Duchess of Sussex, a 25-year-old graduate who’d studied acting at Northwestern University, said yes to the role of ‘briefcase girl’ on the NBC quiz show Deal or No Deal – but, as the 41-year-old revealed in the latest episode of her Archetypes podcast, the experience wasn’t a positive one.
Appearing alongside 50 other ‘briefcase girls’, all wearing glamorous – and usually revealing – dresses, Meghan and her new colleagues were charged with opening the case they were each holding to reveal its contents – cash or otherwise – after being picked by a contestant.
While the California-based royal recounted to socialite Paris Hilton on her sixth podcast episode, ‘Breaking Down The Bimbo’, how the show left her feeling ‘objectified’ and like a ‘bimbo’ – she featured in 34 episodes from 2006 to 2007.
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Deal or No Deal ‘briefcase girls’: Meghan, 41, appeared on Season two of NBC’s Deal or No Deal 16 years ago but quit after 34 episodes; In today’s new Archetypes podcast episode, she told listeners she was grateful for the work ‘to pay the bills’ – ‘but not how it made me feel’, saying she felt ‘objectified’ and like a ‘bimbo’
Meghan told her listeners in episode six of the podcast about her time on Deal or No Deal, saying: ‘I didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks and little substance.’ Pictured left: The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry in Sydney in 2018 Right: The latest episode of Meghan Markle’s ‘Archetypes’ Spotify podcast features Paris Hilton discussing ‘Breaking Down The Bimbo’
MEGHAN’S 34 SHOWS
Meghan revealed that she and the other women on the show in 2006 and 2007 were forced to ‘line up’ for various beauty treatments including ‘padding in your bra’ and having fake eyelashes applied
It’s thought the briefcase girls got around $800 (£700) per episode, with Canadian funnyman Howie Mandel hosting the show
The Duchess of Sussex first stood beside briefcase number 11 for two episodes, then moved to number 24.
She left the show midway through the season. Revealing on today’s podcast that she’d recently caught an episode of the long-standing show, she said it had brought back memories of starting out in her career.
She explained: ‘While Deal or No, Deal wasn’t about acting, I 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’.
Meghan revealed that she and the other women on the show were forced to ‘line up’ for various beauty treatments including ‘padding in your bra’.
She said: ‘I ended up quitting the show. 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 word bimbo’, adding: ‘It’s a word that is used to cut down a beautiful woman to kind of say well she’s beautiful, but maybe she’s slutty or maybe she’s silly or stupid’.
She said: ‘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, Buenos Aires, and being in the motorcade with the secretary of treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain.’
She said: ‘I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me, but that wasn’t the focus of why we were there and I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach. Like I said, I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel which was not smart’.
THE HOST: HOWIE MANDEL
Canadian comedian, Howie Mandel hosted the show at the time when Meghan appeared on it – but doesn’t remember the royal amongst the other briefcase girls
Now: The comedian, who shot to fame after voicing the character of Gizmo in the Gremlins films, is currently a judge on AGT All-Stars alongside Simon Cowell and Heidi Klum
At the presenting helm of the quiz show during Meghan’s time on it was host Howie Mandel.
The Canadian comedian, who shot to fame after voicing the character of Gizmo in the Gremlins films, is currently a judge on AGT All-Stars alongside Simon Cowell and Heidi Klum.
In a 2018 interview on the Dr. Oz Show, Mandal said he didn’t remember the Duchess during her time on the 2006-2007 series.
He said: ‘What do I remember? I’m going to be totally honest with you. Nothing. I don’t remember Meghan. I don’t.’
Gesturing to a photo of Meghan as a briefcase girl, Howie said, ‘I saw that picture when she became the Duchess or when she got engaged.
‘I saw that picture and they went, “She was a Deal or No Deal model,” and I go, “Really? Really? What number?”
‘I think she’s just a young lady with a lot of baggage,’ he joked.
THE ‘BRIEFCASE GIRL’ LOOK
The royal claimed that the women holing the cases had to go to beauty stations, including one for padding bras – and said they would also be offered fake eyelashes on set
The briefcase girls – including Meghan Markle, holding the number 24 suitcase – saw the women ‘lined up before the show’ to get beauty treatments including padding in bras and fake eyelashes
In her interview with socialite Paris Hilton, Meghan explained the protocol for briefcase girls on the show, saying ‘You have to imagine – just to paint the picture for you – that 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. It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains’.
THE SUITCASE
Meghan used briefcase number 24 for 31 of the shows she appeared on, after testing out numbers 11 and 12 during her first few episodes.
On two separate instances, Meghan had the pleasure of informing contestants that they’d eradicated the meager $5 prize from the running.
But as fans of the show will know all too well, it’s a game that comes with certain risks.
In another episode, the Duchess had to deliver the gut-wrenching blow that the player was no longer in the running to win a stagger $500,000.
THE SALARY
Although it wasn’t exactly Meghan’s dream job, the Duchess revealed that she was ‘grateful’ to have a steady income while she was still trying to bag acting roles.
Meghan became a Deal or No Deal regular in 2006, three years after she graduated from Northwestern University with a joint-honours degree in Theatre and International Studies.
In his 2020 biography Meghan Misunderstood, royal author Sean Smith claimed that ‘Briefcase Girls’ were ‘paid $800 (£606) per episode and sometimes there were up to seven episodes filmed per day.’
As a result, ‘Briefcase Girls’ could earn up to £4,240 in a single day if they were available to film every episode.
Despite the generous salary, Meghan ultimately decided to leave the show after 34 episodes in 2007 due to the importance it placed on women’s appearances.
‘We were even given spray-tan vouchers each week because there was a very cookie cutter idea of precisely what we should look like,’ Meghan said. It was solely about our beauty’.
Discussing her decision to walk away from the job, Meghan added: ‘I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me, but that wasn’t the focus of why we were there and I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach.
‘Like I said, I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel which was not smart’.
However, it turned out to be the right move for Meghan’s professional career – as the Duchess then went on to earn $50,000 an episode during the heights of Suits’ fame.
What’s more, royal author Andrew Morton – who famously wrote Diana: Her True Story – claimed in his 2018 biography on Meghan that she was charging £15,000 for public speaking events around the time she met Prince Harry.
Following her hugely successful UN speech in 2015, the expert claims chat show requests started coming in ‘thick and fast’ – which prompted her to sign with elite talent agency Kruger Cowne.
Describing how Meghan ‘price tag rose with her celebrity status’, the biographer said Meghan was soon charging ‘twenty thousand dollars and upwards per appearance’ in 2017.
Meghan Markle says she was ‘reduced to a bimbo’ but wants Lilibet to ‘aspire higher’: Duchess says she quit job as ‘briefcase girl’ on Deal or No Deal because she was valued for ‘beauty not brains’ in latest Archetypes podcast with Paris Hilton
Meghan Markle has revealed she quit as a Deal or No Deal briefcase girl after 34 episodes because she was ‘objectified’ and forced to have spray tans and wear a padded bra that left her reduced to a ‘bimbo’ – the word at the heart of her latest Spotify podcast released today featuring Paris Hilton.
The Duchess of Sussex said she was grateful for the work and money as she tried to succeed as an actress – but disliked ‘how it made me feel, which was not smart’ because ‘I didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks’.
Speaking on her new Archetypes podcast with Ms Hilton, called ‘Breaking Down the Bimbo’, Meghan said that she wants her own daughter Lilibet to be valued first for her mind – rather than ‘beauty not brains’ like she was on the TV gameshow.
The Duchess, who appeared in Deal or No Deal between 2006 and 2007, calling it a ‘a short stint’ to pay the bills, adding: ‘I want our daughter 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’.
Meghan appeared on season two of NBC’s Deal or No Deal 16 years ago. She first stood beside briefcase number 11 for two episodes, then moved to number 24. She left the show midway through the season.
She said: ‘I ended up quitting the show. 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 word bimbo’.
The California-based royal revealed that she and the other women on the show were forced to ‘line up’ for various beauty treatments including ‘padding in your bra’, to attach fake eyelashes and ‘put in’ hair extensions.
She said: ‘We were even given spray-tan vouchers each week because there was a very cookie cutter idea, of precisely what we should look like. It was solely about our beauty’. Meghan added that a woman ‘in charge’ of the show would tell her to ‘suck it in’ before filming began, presumably an order to suck in her stomach on camera.
It came in the sixth episode of her Archetypes podcast for Spotify, which features Ms Markle speaking to other famous women including her friends Serena Williams, Mariah Carey and Margaret Cho where they ‘investigate, dissect, and subvert the labels that try to hold women back’.
Meghan and Prince Harry have signed a 3-year podcast deal with the streaming giant for an estimated $15million to $18million. They also have a Netflix deal worth an estimated $100million but their upcoming and controversial fly-on-the-wall documentary series is yet to have a release date amid claims the couple are ‘trying to tone down’ its content about the Royal Family.
Meghan Markle today opened up on being a Deal or No Deal briefcase girl and revealed she quit claiming she felt ‘objectified’ and like a ‘bimbo’
Meghan appeared on Season two of NBC’s Deal or No Deal 16 years ago. She first stood beside briefcase number 11 for two episodes, then moved to number 24. The royal claimed that the briefcase girls had to go to beauty stations, including one for padding her bra and there were spray tan vouchers. Meghan said that she wants her own daughter Lilibet to be valued first for her brain rather than her beauty or her body.
The Duchess of Sussex was speaking on her new Archetypes podcast with Paris Hilton, called ‘Breaking Down the Bimbo’
Meghan claims she was ‘grateful’ to join Deal or No Deal to get money, pay the bills, secure health insurance and join a union while starting out as an actress – but quit after ‘short stint’ of 34 EPISODES
Meghan Markle said she was ‘thankful’ to work on Deal or No Deal as a suitcase girl – but was made to feel ‘not smart’.
The Duchess of Sussex said she ‘was flipping through the channels on TV this by the way is a rarity when you have two children under the age of four but I saw an episode of a game show called Deal or No Deal. This brought back a lot of memories’.
She went on: ‘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.
‘While Deal or No, Deal wasn’t about acting, I 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’.
But she said she disliked feeling ‘forced to be all looks and little substance’ during her stint’.
She said: ‘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, Buenos Aires, and being in the motorcade with the secretary of treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain.
She said: ‘I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me, but that wasn’t the focus of why we were there and I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach. Like I said, I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel which was not smart’.
Meghan also admitted she ‘judged’ Paris Hilton ahead of interviewing her for her Archetypes podcast, telling listeners: ‘I’m embarrassed to admit it, I had a judgment about Paris. And I don’t like having judgment doesn’t feel good. But I had to be real about that because when I grew up, she was beautiful, rich and famous. What could possibly be wrong with her life?’ Hilton responded saying she was also hesitant about an audience with the Duchess of Sussex ‘because I’m just such a shy person and we haven’t met before’.
The Duchess of Sussex appeared on the show before he breakthrough on the hit show Suits, before she met Prince Harry.
The Duchess of Sussex appeared in 34 episodes between 2006 and 2007. She said at the start of her podcast: ‘I was 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’.
But she said that she would daydream about not being appreciated for her brain or education.
She said: ‘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, Buenos Aires, and being in the motorcade with the secretary of treasury at the time and being valued specifically for my brain.
‘Here, I was being valued for something quite the opposite. I mean, you have to imagine just to paint the picture for you that 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. It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains’.
Meghan’s views on Deal or No Deal then cut to a clip of New Yorker journalist Clare Malone, who says bimbo is ‘a word that is used to cut down a beautiful woman to kind of say well she’s beautiful, but maybe she’s slutty or maybe she’s silly or stupid’.
Meghan also told listeners on the latest episode of her ‘Archetypes’ Spotify podcast that she was nervous about interviewing Paris Hilton, because she’d ‘had a judgment’ about the socialite.
The latest episode of the Duchess of Sussex’s podcast series, entitled ‘Breaking Down The Bimbo’, saw her come face-to-face with the 41-year-old socialite as they discussed her rise to fame as a reality TV star in the 90s.
Before the interview began, Markle, also 41, told her audience that she was anxious ahead of the recording, saying: ‘I’ve been the most nervous about this one.’
She explained: ‘Because while I’m embarrassed to admit it, I had a judgment about Paris. And I don’t like having judgment doesn’t feel good.
‘But I had to be real about that because when I grew up, she was beautiful, rich and famous. What could possibly be wrong with her life?’
The frank episode saw Markle discuss the labels of ‘Bimbo’ and ‘Dumb Blonde’, exploring why ‘brains and beauty in a woman have been historically pitted against each other’.
In last week’s episode Meghan claimed she had been branded ‘crazy’ and ‘hysterical’, saying such labels were used to silence women.
In her latest podcast, she said the insults could lead to people being ‘gaslit’ into thinking they were ill. Taking a swipe at films and TV, she attacked the way the words were ‘thrown around casually’, leaving ‘reputations destroyed and careers ruined’.
Meghan, 41, didn’t say who had questioned her mental health but revealed her ‘worst point’ came after she started dating Prince Harry and he arranged a referral for her.
During her bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last year she confessed to feeling suicidal while working as a frontline member of the Royal Family. Her experience demonstrated the need to be ‘really honest about what it is that you need’, she said.
In a trigger warning at the start of the podcast, entitled The Decoding Of Crazy, the duchess advised listeners to tune out if the subject matter was ‘too heavy’.
She added: ‘Raise your hand if you’ve ever been called crazy or hysterical or what about nuts? Insane, out of your mind, completely irrational. OK, you get the point. Now, if we were all in the same room and could see each other, I think it would be pretty easy to see just how many of us have our hands up.
‘By the way, me too. And it’s no wonder when you consider just how prevalent these labels are in our culture.’
The Duchess of Sussex released the latest episode of her Spotify Archetypes podcast, ‘Breaking Down The Bimbo’, on Tuesday – but admitted she was nervous about interviewing Paris Hilton because she’d ‘had a judgment’ about the US socialite. Ms Markle, 41, says she grew up thinking ‘What could possibly be wrong with her life?’ because Hilton, also 41, was ‘beautiful, rich and famous’
Hilton shot to fame in the 90s, with socialite pal Nicole Richie in reality TV show The Simple Life; she says she was told to adopt a ‘bimbo’ persona for the programme
Meghan’s Spotify podcast has returned after a brief pause following the death of Prince Harry’s grandmother the Queen
The former Suits star said the damaging depictions of women’s mental states were ‘drilled into us from movies and TV, from friends and family, and even random strangers’.
Several clips were played, including one from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother where Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris, says: ‘If she’s this crazy, she has to be this hot.’
Conservative philosopher Jordan Peterson was then heard saying: ‘I don’t think that men can control crazy women.’
The stigma around the word crazy had a ‘silencing effect’, particularly for those with real mental health issues, Meghan added. ‘They get scared. They stay quiet, they internalise and they repress for far too long.’
Describing how Harry, 38, found help for her at her lowest ebb, the California-based mother of two recalled: ‘My husband had found a referral for me to call.
‘And I called this woman and she didn’t even know I was calling her and she was checking out at the grocery store. I could hear the little beep, beep … she could hear the dire state that I was in. But I think it’s for all of us to be really honest about what it is that you need and to not be afraid and make peace with that, to ask for it.’
The 55-minute fifth episode of her Archetypes podcast series, which went on to different topics including successful women being ‘calculating or having some agenda’, had a contribution from US comedian Jenny Slate. During a discussion on the word hysteria – from the Greek for womb – Miss Slate said: ‘Hysteria, craziness, like it’s a disease of the people with the uteri, like, the people with the emotions. It is a definition created by a man. It is a definition meant to shame and limit a certain type of experience.’