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Meghan Markle was spotted enjoying a shopping day with a friend in California as she faces backlash for comments she made about her role as a Deal or No Deal ‘briefcase girl,’ saying the show ‘reduced her to a bimbo.’
The Duchess of Sussex enjoyed a stroll around shops on Friday in Montecito, where she lives with Prince Harry and their two children.
The royal was sporting a strapless black jumper with flat sandals, sunglasses, and a wide brim hat. She was also seen with an olive colored sweater draped over her shoulders.
Meghan was carrying goods from Wendy Foster, a high-end women’s fashion boutique that specializes in sportswear where clothes go for hundreds of dollars. The shop’s website only sells gift cards to its stores that go for as high as $1,000.
The outing comes as the Duchess faces a storm of criticism from high profile TV personalities and former colleagues from Deal or No Deal about her comments on the game show.
Meghan Markle was seen enjoying a shopping day on Friday afternoon in Montecito, California, (above) where she lives with Prince Harry and their two kids
She was seen wearing a strapless black jumper with flat sandals, sunglasses, and a wide brim hat
Meghan was also seen showing off a bag of goods from Wendy Foster, a high-end women’s fashion boutique that specializes in sportswear where clothes go for hundreds of dollars
The Duchess of Sussex was accompanied with a friend who was dressed in a green sweater and torn jeans
The shopping at Wendy Foster was part of an afternoon shopping trip to Montecito’s Pierre La Fond shopping outlet
Pierre La Fond features several high-end stores that cater to the wealthy that call Montecito home
Along with her trip to Montecito’s Pierre La Fond high-end shopping outlet, Meghan was seen stopping for lunch in nearby Santa Barbara.
The Duchess enjoyed the outing with a friend, who sported a green sweater, torn up jeans and a white cap.
The outings served as a chance for Meghan to unwind after garnering backlash over comments she made about her role in Deal or No Deal on her podcast.
Actress and chat show host Whoopi Goldberg said Meghan’s remarks were naive. ‘That’s TV, baby. But what did you think you were going to? You know that’s what the show was,’ she said. ‘When you’re a performer, you take the gig.’
Women who appeared on the show at the same time as Meghan, meanwhile, tell a rather different story from the Duchess. They say the atmosphere was fun rather than oppressive or sleazy.
One of the briefcase girls who worked with Meghan was Lisa Gleave, a successful Australian model, TV presenter and actress now living in LA.
Like Meghan, she had to master the art of walking down stairs in a skimpy dress and five-inch heels, holding a briefcase and remembering the cardinal rule: look delighted for the contestant if things go well for them and sad if not.
Gleave told the Mail of her stint on Deal Or No Deal that she felt ‘blessed and lucky to have been on it’, adding: ‘For me it was a joy and a great career move. Most of the girls would say that.’
She said: ‘I never looked at it as a show that objectified women. The cast and crew treated us very well. It was a professional set. For many of us, it was a stepping stone on our careers and we went on to greater things.’
While Lisa acknowledged the show ‘revolved around beautiful women’, they were ‘all smart and intelligent women and nobody treated us like bimbos’.
The happy shopping day coincides with a flurry of backlash Meghan received over her dismissive comments about working as a model on the hit game show, Deal or No Deal
The fledgling actor landed the role in 2006 and worked as a briefcase model for 34 episodes, but Meghan now says she does not look fondly on those days on TV, saying she ‘reduced’ to a ‘bimbo’
‘It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains,’ Meghan said on her podcast this week
Pictured: Meghan out shopping with her friend as criticism poured in about her comments of the show
Meghan attempted to tie in her comments to the themes of archetypes of her show, but many claim she was being derogatory towards her fellow models on the game show
Lisa Gleave (left) who also worked as a model on Deal or No Deal condemned Meghans comments. Meghan is pictured as briefcase model No. 24 (left) while on the show for 34 episodes
In the latest episode of Archetypes, the woman once known as ‘Briefcase No 24’ considered the show to be an exploitative bear pit of sexism and female objectification when she worked on Season Two in 2006, until the humiliation of being treated like a bimbo simply became too much and she had to quit. Although not, she omitted to mention, before she’d appeared in 34 episodes.
She provided an all-too familiar account of life in the pre-#MeToo era, a time when scores of women were routinely subjected to sexism, misogyny, exploitation and, in many cases, horrific sexual abuse and harassment at the hands of co-stars and directors.
Meghan clearly resented how ‘the girls’ in the show had to prepare themselves for each episode: ‘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’.
‘There was,’ she added, ‘a very cookie-cutter idea of precisely what we should look like. It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains.’
While being grateful for the money, she left the show — in which contestants guess which of 26 briefcases contain cash prizes rising to $1 million — because it made her feel ‘not smart’, adding: ‘I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach, knowing I was so much more than what was being objectified on this 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.’
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