Meghan Markle has revealed she felt "objectified" during her stint as a briefcase girl on Deal or No Deal and recalled the four-word jibe that led to her quitting after being made to feel like a "bimbo".
It came during the sixth episode of her Spotify podcast Archetypes, in which she chats to TV star and heiress Paris Hilton about the labels "bimbo" and "dumb blonde". Before her chat with Paris, Meghan talks of her days working on the US edition of the hit TV show Deal or No Deal, where she appeared on its second season 16 years ago. And although she says she is grateful that the job helped give her a leg up in her acting career, she reveals that reason she quit the role as it did not make her feel smart and she had to look a certain way.
She explains: "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 then reveals how one of the women who worked on the show would tell her to "suck it in" every time she went on stage and that she felt it was "all looks and little substance".
She recalls: "And when I look back at that time I will never never forget this one detail because moments before we'd get on stage, there was a woman who ran the show and she would be there backstage and I can still hear her.
"She couldn't properly pronounce my last name at the time, and I knew who she was talking to because she would go 'Markell suck it in, Markell suck it in'.
"I ended up quitting the show. Like I said, 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 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."
"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."
Meanwhile, later in the episode, she reveals how she hopes that her and Prince Harry's one-year-old daughter Lilibet will want to have "higher aspirations".
She says: "I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this idea because when I hear the word bimbo, I have a very negative connotation to it.
"I don't see that as an aspirational thing for a woman, I want our daughters to aspire to be slightly higher.
"I want my Lili to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things.
Meghan and Harry signed a lucrative deal with the audio streaming giant Spotify to host and produce podcasts, estimated to be worth around £18 million, in late 2020.
Archetypes was launched with the aim of investigating "labels that try to hold women back" through conversations between Meghan and historians, experts and women who have experienced being typecast.
In last week's episode, Meghan chatted to Deepika Padukone, Jenny Slate and Constance Wu and discussed how the word crazy is used to "diminish women's credibility".
And in it, she opened up about her "worst point" with her mental health and revealed husband Prince Harry was the one who found her help.
Meanwhile, in the first episode of the series with tennis star Serena Williams, Meghan revealed how her and Harry’s son Archie narrowly escaped a fire in his bedroom when he was meant to be sleeping, during the Sussexes' tour of South Africa in 2019 - and how she had to go out after to do another official engagement.
Guests in the other episodes of the podcast so far have also included pop singer Mariah Carey, comedian and actress Mindy Kaling and comedian Margaret Cho.
