Before Meghan Markle married into the royal family, she was making her mark in the entertainment industry, which is how she made her fortune. 

This includes her starring role on the series “Suits” for seven seasons before her 2017 exit from the show. 

However, prior to her most well-known acting job, Markle was featured on the game show, “Deal or No Deal.”

Markle served as one of the briefcase girls on the show who held two of the cases with the numbers on them. 

Markle would smile as she held numbers 24 and 26, waiting for contestants to announce which one they wanted to open. 

Her fellow briefcase model, Lisa Gleave, told the Gold Coast Bulletin that the Duchess of Sussex was “quiet but very sweet.” 

Still, Gleave knew right away that Markle would not be on the show for long. “I remember her being very focused on her acting career and her role as a briefcase beauty, as we were called, was just a stepping stone in her career,” Gleave shared. The wife of Prince Harry has also touched on her “Deal or No Deal” days, admitting they were not as glamorous as they appeared.

In a 2018 interview with Esquire, Meghan Markle reflected on her “Deal or No Deal” journey, which doesn’t appear to have been fun for the one-time entertainer. According to the Duchess of Sussex, she only took the position while trying to pay her bills while pursuing her big break. “Definitely working on ‘Deal or No Deal’ was a learning experience, and it helped me to understand what I would rather be doing,” Markle explained.

Later in the conversation, the mother of two spoke about the working conditions, which were not ideal on the show’s main stage. “I would end up standing up there forever in these terribly uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels just waiting for someone to pick my number so I could go and sit down,” Markle added. She remained on the game show for the second season from 2006 and 2007, but eventually made her debut on “Suits” in 2011, with even Prince William and Kate Middleton being fans of her performance. And while Markle has been away from the scripted television world for several years, she could be plotting her return.

Markle could be planning her television return

Meghan Markle may be dusting off her acting skills, with rumors of her returning to Hollywood continuing to circulate. After reruns of “Suits” began streaming on Netflix in June 2023, an insider told Life & Style Magazine in August of that year that the show being on the streaming platform made people want more of Markle. “‘Suits’ is such a hit in reruns that Meghan’s being told there’s a demand from fans to see her act again. She’s excited.”

With Prince Harry and Markle moving to California in 2020 and distancing themselves from the royal family, the couple were forced to make a living for themselves. A previous Spotify deal rumored to be worth $20 million fell through, which allegedly left Markle looking for new streams of income, according to the source. “With other opportunities drying up, she’s actively looking for roles and talking to some big-name directors and producers. Harry is 100 percent supportive of all of it.” She has already helped bring to life three documentaries to Netflix: “Heart of Invictus,” “Live to Lead” and “Harry & Meghan,” through their company, Archewell Productions. During Variety’s Power of Women event in November 2023, she teased that there were more film projects to come, telling the outlet, “I can’t wait until we can announce them, but I’m just really proud of what we’re creating.

The Stunning Transformation Of Meghan Markle

Before she made tabloid headlines as Prince Harry’s significant other (and, as of May 19, 2018, his wife), Meghan Markle was turning heads as an actress and model. There’s no doubt that she’s an intriguing woman, but there may be more to her than meets the eye.

What is it about this woman that has so captivated the world’s attention? It’s more than her good looks or her status as a royal’s significant other. Markle is also known for her humanitarian work and her activism. She is an inspiring role model, devoted to philanthropic pursuits, which is a large part of the reason that many people were speculating that she was royal material early into her relationship with Harry.

If there is such a thing as an American princess, Markle is it. She’s a self-made woman with beauty, grace, and charm. Of course, no fairy tale is without its setbacks. From struggling with her multiracial identity as a child, to a very public divorce, Markle’s struggles have only made her emerge as a stronger woman.

While it may seem like she had a charmed childhood, spending a lot of time with her cinematographer father on television sets, Markle has spoken about how she often grappled with her identity and how her mixed-race features caused her to stand out — her father is Caucasian, while her mother is African-American. In a 2016 piece for Elle, the then-35 year old Markle wrote that she struggled to fit in as a child. 

She described how in her seventh grade English class, she had to fill out a census where “you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian.” Not knowing which box to check, she said, “My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. ‘Because that’s how you look, Meghan,’ she said.” She couldn’t bring herself to do that, imagining her mother’s sadness were she to find out. “So, I didn’t tick a box. I left my identity blank — a question mark, an absolute incomplete — much like how I felt.”

Her father helped her learn to define her own identity

Markle explained in her Elle article that her father helped her to accept her identity and embrace it. After telling him that she was unable to choose which census box to check to define her identity, he said, “If that happens again, you draw your own box.” It seems that Markle has done just that, carving out a place for herself in an industry that was not always willing to accept her. 

In her piece for Elle, Markle referred to acting as a “label-driven industry” in which her “ethnically ambiguous” look made it difficult to book work. She wrote, “I wasn’t black enough for the black roles and I wasn’t white enough for the white ones.” 

Even after Markle achieved stardom, her appearance was often a problem to be fixed. “To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot,” Markle told Allure. “For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger,” she said. “‘A face without freckles is a night without stars.’

Her experience with racism has a huge impact on her advocacy

Her multiracial identity has had a profound effect on Markle and how she views the world. In 2015, she recounted a story on her now-defunct website The Tig about her mother’s experiences growing up African-American. Her grandfather, Alvin, told her that on a family road trip the family went to Kentucky Fried Chicken and “had to go to the back for ‘coloreds.’ The kitchen staff handed me the chicken from the back door and we ate in the parking lot. That’s just what it was.”

The story stuck with her for decades, prompting the then 33-year-old to write an essay about her family’s experiences with racism. “That story still haunts me,” wrote Markle. “It reminds me of how young our country is. How far we’ve come and how far we still have to come. It makes me think of the countless black jokes people have shared in front of me, not realizing I am mixed, unaware that I am the ethnically ambiguous fly on the wall. It makes me wonder what my parents experienced as a mixed-race couple.”

Today, Markle uses her celebrity status to advocate for equality. She said that family’s experiences instilled in her a “social consciousness to do what I could, and to, at the very least, speak up when I knew something was wrong.”

She struggled to make ends meet

Markle struggled to distinguish herself in Hollywood. In her early days in the industry, she had trouble making ends meet. While other up-and-coming actors waited tables, Markle utilized another of her talents to make money: calligraphy. She told Esquire in 2013 that she provided calligraphy services for such lucrative clients as Robin Thicke and Dolce & Gabbana. “I’m glad that in the land of no one seeming to appreciate a handwritten note anymore that I can try to keep that alive,” she said.

On the acting side, she certainly paid her dues. One of her early television appearances at 25 years old was as a “briefcase girl” on the game show Deal or No Deal in 2006. Markle called that gig “a learning experience,” which helped her “understand what I would rather be doing.” Markle said that her number, 26, was “ill-fated” and that no one ever chose it, forcing her to stay on her feet. “I would end up standing up there forever in these terribly uncomfortable and inexpensive five-inch heels just waiting for someone to pick my number so I could go and sit down,” she said.

She helped redefine Hollywood’s definition of “dream girl”

Markle’s career in Hollywood may have gotten off to a rocky start, but landing the role of Rachel Zane on Suits catapulted her into stardom. The character of Rachel is not only beautiful, but also whip-smart — what Markle referred to as “the dream girl.” Markle loves that because it’s a role typically reserved for “that quintessential blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty — that was the face that launched a thousand ships, not the mixed one.”

Markle said that the producers of the show “weren’t looking for someone mixed, nor someone white or black for that matter. They were simply looking for Rachel” and that in choosing her for the role “the Suits producers helped shift the way pop culture defines beauty.”

Her role as Rachel Zane didn’t just launch her career, it was also groundbreaking — by putting a multiracial woman on TV. “Some households may never have had a black person in their house as a guest, or someone biracial,” said Markle. “Well, now there are a lot of us on your TV and in your home with you. And with Suits, specifically, you have Rachel Zane. I couldn’t be prouder of that.”

She has used her education for more than you’d think

Markle may have followed her father’s footsteps into show business, but she also followed her mother’s example in getting a strong education. Doria Ragland earned a B.A. from Antioch University and later went on to earn a Master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California.

Markle graduated from Northwestern University in 2003 where she double majored in theater and international studies, both majors serving her well in her life. In addition to acting, Markle also has worked for the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and as a UN Women’s advocate. Markle said that her job at the U.S. Embassy “helped my decision to work on women’s political participation and leadership.”

She works tirelessly to empower women

Much of Markle’s humanitarian work focuses on empowering women. She traveled to India with World Vision in January of 2017 and wrote a powerful piece for Time about the young girls she encountered who are burdened by “the stigma surrounding menstrual health.” The then 35-year-old drew attention to how this stigmatization can “perpetuate the cycle of poverty and stunt a young girl’s dream for a more prolific future.”

The article explains that in the Western world, where women have access to clean bathrooms and sanitary napkins, menstruation is simply a part of life. In India, twenty-three percent of young girls end up dropping out of school because “these factors are not at play.”

Markle finds this “unacceptable.” She said, “We need to push the conversation, mobilize policy-making surrounding menstrual health initiatives, support organizations who foster girls’ education from the ground up, and within our own homes, we need to rise above our puritanical bashfulness when it comes to talking about menstruation.”

She started fighting for feminism at 11 years old by writing a letter

Markle has been speaking out on behalf of women ever since she was a child. At the age of 11, a commercial played on the television in her classroom. “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans,” the commercial claimed. Markle described how her “little freckled face became red with anger,” as the boys in her class “yelled out, ‘Yeah, that’s where women belong. In the kitchen.'”

Markle was only 11 years old, but she went home and wrote letters to prominent female figures, including civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. Moved by the young girl’s outrage, the women pledged their support and, “a few months later, the commercial was changed to ‘People all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.'”

Today, she is vocal about women “needing a seat at the table.” Markle said that if an invitation to that table is not available, women “need to create their own table.”

She will do anything to protect her privacy

It would be easy to assume that someone like Markle would be impervious to heartbreak. But she is human just like the rest of us. The actress dated producer Trevor Engelson for several years before the celebrity power couple became engaged. The pair were married for just two years before divorcing in 2013, making the split public, shortly after Markle’s 32nd birthday. While the split seemed amicable at the time, Markle’s divorcee status was scrutinized by the public when she became involved with Prince Harry in 2016.

The actress distanced herself from the gossip, even shutting down her lifestyle website The Tig, as she was thrust evermore into the spotlight. The website had provided many insights into her personal life, covering fashion, food, and essays penned by the actress herself. Her parting message on the site is to her fans, but could just as well be about herself — a reminder to the world that she is an independent woman, despite the public’s attempt to define her by her partners. “Above all, don’t ever forget your worth-as I’ve told you time and time again: you, my sweet friend, you are enough,” she said.

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Source: Los Angeles Times