Meghan Markle’s ‘Deal Or No Deal’ Past Revisited As Show Returns

Before Meghan Markle married Prince Harry and joined the British royal family, before she starred as Rachel Zane on “Suits” and before she became a Hallmark Channel star, she was a “Deal or No Deal” briefcase model. To be exact, she was briefcase model number 24.

She was on the game show for over 30 episodes between 2006 and 2007, while the show itself aired new episodes from 2005 to 2009. Now, the show’s making its grand return on Tuesday night on CNBC with Howie Mandel once again as the host.

While the series, which originally aired on NBC, won’t have Markle back on as a model — both because she’s beyond that in her acting career and because she’s left show business behind altogether — it will have a whole new line-up of briefcase stars.

“I would put that in the category of things I was doing while I was auditioning to try to make ends meet,” Markle told Esquire in 2013 of her time on the game show. “I went from working in the U.S. Embassy in Argentina to ending up on ‘Deal.’ It’s run the gamut.

“Definitely working on ‘Deal or No Deal’ was a learning experience, and it helped me to understand what I would rather be doing. So if that’s a way for me to gloss over that subject, then I will happily shift gears into something else.”

Well, she completely shifted gears 10 years later when she got engaged to Prince Harry in 2017 and then again some more when she married him earlier in 2018. Now, the Duchess of Sussex is pregnant and getting ready to have her first baby with her husband. Plus, the two are planning to move out of Kensington Palace and into Frogmore Cottage.

You can watch the Markle-less “Deal or No Deal” revival premiere on CNBC on Wednesday at 8 p.m. EST.