WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM – JULY 26: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attends the Sentebale ISPS Handa Polo Cup at the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club on July 26, 2018 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Anwar Hussein/WireImage)

When Meghan Markle first began dating Prince Harry, images of her former role as a “briefcase girl” on the US game show Deal or No Deal were quickly shared across the internet. The jokes and mockery at the time were some of the very first snippets of how much scrutiny Markle would soon be under as she got engaged to, and eventually married, the British royal.

Though she only worked on the show for a year in 2006, and that she was “grateful” to have a way to pay her bills, Markle says the role reduced her “to a bimbo” and says she felt “objectified” on stage.

“There was a very cookie-cutter idea of precisely what we should look like. It was solely about beauty — and not necessarily about brains,” Markle told her guest on Archetypes this week, someone who also knows a lot about being reduced to a bimbo: Paris Hilton.

“When I look back at that time, I will never forget this one detail — because moments before we’d get onstage, there was a woman who ran the show, and she would be there backstage, and I can still hear her,” Markle recalled. “She couldn’t properly pronounce my last name at the time, and I knew who she was talking to, because she would go, ‘Mark-el, suck it in! Mark-el, suck it in!'”

NEW YORK – OCTOBER 25: (ITALY OUT, NY DAILY NEWS OUT, NY NEWSDAY OUT) Paris Hilton films an episode of the Simple Life on October 25, 2004 in New York City. (Photo by Arnaldo Magnani/Getty Images)

Markle quit the show after one year and eventually went on to star in the hit legal drama, Suits. “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,” Markle added.

“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.” She continued, “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.”

Hilton says she felt the same way when she starred alongside her friend Nicole Richie on their early noughties reality show, The Simple Life. Hilton revealed producers wanted Richie to be “the troublemaker” and Hilton to be “the rich, dumb blonde,” saying she began to play up to the part so much on both the show and in interviews that she got “stuck and lost in the character,” to the point where sometimes, she says, “I forgot who I was.”

“Now I’m pushing for federal legislation and going to D.C., and, yeah, it’s just been so empowering,” Hilton, who came out accusing her former school of abuse last year, says. “Just really turn my pain into a purpose. And I almost think that maybe God made me go through this and gave me this special gift so that one day I could be the hero that I needed when I was a little girl and help save these children from having to go through the torture that myself and so many others went through.”