Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, said her experience on the US television series Deal or No Deal left her feeling objectified and reduced to the “bimbo” stereotype.
On her Archetypes podcast, Meghan spoke to comedian Iliza Shlesinger and former reality star Paris Hilton about breaking down “dumb blonde” labels. The duchess said she felt reduced to that label during her time as a “briefcase girl” on the programme.
“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 US 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,” Meghan said.
“Here I was being valued for something quite the opposite.”
Deal or No Deal, an American game show, featured 26 female models, each holding a suitcase that contained money ranging from $0.01 to $1 million. Contestants would then tell host Howie Mandel which suitcase they want to be opened. The show ended in 2019.
She opened briefcases for the show in 2006. As a “briefcase girl”, she would walk up and down a staircase and wait for contestants to call on her suitcase number.
Meghan said she came across an old episode of the show recently and recalled how other suitcase models had to put on fake eyelashes and hair extensions. She also said the models were given vouchers to receive spray tans.
“We tell a woman to be one way then we ridicule her for following suit,” she said.
“That’s exactly why archetypes ― including the bimbo or the dumb blonde ― this is why they flourished in the reality TV boom of the early 2000s.
“There was a very cookie-cutter idea of precisely what we should look like.”
Meghan eventually quit the show before meeting future husband Prince Harry.
“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 said.
“And 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.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex through the years — in pictures
