I was reduced to role of game show bimbo, says Duchess

‘I want my Lili to want to be educated, and want to be smart, and to pride herself on those things’

THE Duchess of Sussex has complained at being valued for her beauty and not her brains while working on the TV game show Deal or No Deal, saying it made her feel “not smart”.

The Duchess, who was a briefcase girl on the show while she was a young actress, told listeners to her Archetypes podcast that she had known she was “so much more than what was being objectified on the stage”.

The latest episode of the podcast features the Duchess interviewing heiress and early reality TV star Paris Hilton on the topic of being viewed as a “bimbo”.

In the opening sequence, Meghan was inspired to relay her own experience of “being reduced to this specific archetype: the word ‘bimbo’”.

She said: “My experience – which included holding [a] briefcase on stage alongside 25 other women doing the same – was, for me, fascinating.”

Prior to taking the job in 2006, she said, she had “studied acting in college at Northwestern University and, like a lot of the other women on stage with me, acting was what I was pursuing.

“So while Deal or No Deal wasn’t about acting, I was still really grateful as an auditioning actress to have a job,” she said. “And yet, I had also studied international relations in college.

“There were times when I was on set and thinking back to my time as an intern at the US Embassy in Argentina … and being valued specifically for my brain. Here, I was being valued for something quite the opposite.”

The Duchess said her unhappiness at the situation, which included being told repeatedly to suck her stomach in, finally led her to resign.

Of her own youth, the Duchess said she had not been seen as the “pretty one” or the “funny one” but would reassure herself: “I’m the smart one, I’m the smart one.” Of her daughter, Lilibet, one, she added: “I want my Lili to want to be educated, and want to be smart, and to pride herself on those things.”

New episodes of Archetypes are available on Spotify on Tuesdays.

Allison Pearson: Features, Page 7