'The View' host didn't agree with the Duchess of Sussex's claims that she felt objectified on the show.
Whoopi Goldberg doesn't agree with Meghan Markle's comments about her time on the game show Deal or No Deal. In a recent episode of her Archetypes podcast, the 41-year-old Duchess of Sussex discussed her exit from the show, where she served as one of the women holding the briefcases.
"I ended up quitting the show," Markle said. "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 I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage."
On Wednesday's episode of The View, Goldberg discussed Markle's comments, saying she felt that the former actress was mistaken.
"On that show, you basically have a suitcase and they want to know is this the deal you want or is this not the deal you want? I don't know that the people who were sitting there are thinking about you like that," Goldberg said. "They're thinking, I want the money. Let me have the [money]. Because [Wheel of Fortune star] Vanna White is always something interesting and beautiful, and she's been doing this."
Goldberg disagreed with Markle's interpretation that she was being objectified.
"The objectification might be coming from you and how you felt about how these women were being portrayed," Goldberg suggested. "That's what you have to change because we're performers. When you're a performer, you take the gig. You take the gig. Sometimes you're in a Bozo suit. Sometimes you got a big nose and this is just the way it is. We're not journalists, we're actors. We're trying to get to another place."
Several of Goldberg's fellow panelists, however, seemingly defended the duchess.
"But why is it that every game show has a guy running it," Joy Behar asked, "and some gorgeous woman turning letters and holding a box?"
Goldberg seemed to think that was beside the point, saying, "But what did you think you were going to? That's what the show was."
Sunny Hostin agreed with Goldberg's point, but added of Markle, "I also appreciate that she said, 'This makes me feel bad. I'm going to walk away and she walked away.' And I think that's the point."
Goldberg also noted, "My point is, if you see it and that's how you feel, just maybe you don't want to make the other women feel bad because maybe they're trying to make a living, too."
Markle's co-star Claudia Jordan also spoke out defending the show on her Instagram Stories, saying, "Deal or No Deal never treated us like bimbos. We got so many opportunities because of that show."
On her Archetypes podcast, Markle went into further detail about the physical expectations of the job, saying, "When I look back at that time, I'll never forget this one detail. Because moments before we'd get on stage, there was a woman who ran the show and she'd 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'd go, 'Markle, suck it in! Markle, suck it in!'"
She added, "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."
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