Former "Deal or No Deal" model Claudia Jordan think Meghan Markle was off base in claiming she was "reduced to a bimbo" during her time on the show.
"I am not bashing Meghan. I am not invalidating her experience. It's sad she felt that way," Claudia told TMZ. "I didn't know she felt like a bimbo because that certainly wasn't the intention of the show. They wanted beautiful women to work on the show, like most television shows and commercials."
The popular NBC game show ran for seven seasons and featured beautiful women opening briefcases for contestants. Megan was a "briefcase girl" during the show's second season.
"There was a a very cookie-cutter idea of what we should look like," she said on her "Archetypes" podcast about her time on the show. "It was solely about beauty and not necessarily about brains." She added, "I ended up quitting the show. I was thankful for the job, but not the way it made me feel, which was: Not smart."
Claudia, a "Real Housewives of Atlanta" alum, agreed that there were "brilliant" woman on the show, noting many are now successful business owners and lawyers. However, she feels like she needs to defend the women amid Meghan's criticism of the show. She also took issue with Meghan indicating she was "forced to be all looks and little substance."
"'Forced' is not the right word and I wish she would have chosen her words differently," Claudia said, adding that she's often defended Meghan against the "unfair" media treatment she's endured from the British press.
"She was forced to endure that by being married to a royal family member," Claudia said, "'Deal or No Deal,' that's a bit of a reach."
In her dis of the game show, Meghan said, "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."
Claudia implied that Meghan may not have understood the job.
"I wanted to stand up for the other 25 women on the show that I think were brilliant and didn't feel like bimbos," she said. "We knew what [the show] was."