Meghan Markle's Deal or No Deal 'bimbo' comments have been backed by the show's former host Howie Mandel, who has revealed he had 'similar feelings'.
The TV host – who previously said he didn't remember Meghan on the show – says he can see where the 41-year-old was coming from.
Howie, 66, slammed the backlash the Duchess received after she said she felt "objectified" and used the word "bimbo" to describe her time on the show.
In Meghan's defence, the Canadian comedian said he himself 'felt like a bimbo' during his four years presenting the programme.
"I don’t know why there is a big hoopla, except I have to say that me standing there with 26 women staring at me made me feel like a bimbo," he said.
"I get it because — I’ve never said this before — but they had this pyramid of 26 beautiful, intelligent women standing there just staring at me like I was a piece of meat," he told Us Weekly.
"I was in the centre, just dressed up in a suit and I felt like I am more than this. And they would just look at me and I had to do nothing."
Meghan appeared on the hit-US programme's second season 16 years ago and spoke about her time on the show with Paris Hilton on her Archetypes podcast.
It was during the sixth episode where she discussed the labels "bimbo" and "dumb blonde".
She explained: "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."
Meghan then revealed how one of the women who worked on the show would tell her to "suck it in" every time she went on stage and that she felt it was "all looks and little substance".
She recalls: "And when I look back at that time I will never never forget this one detail because moments before we'd get on stage, there was a woman who ran the show and she would 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 would go 'Markell suck it in, Markell suck it in'.
"I ended up quitting the show. Like I said, I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel, which was not smart."
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