There was no doubt that Meghan Markle’s podcast Archetypes was going to be a hit. Following a short break from scheduled programming to allow a period of mourning the Queen’s death, Archetypes returned to renewed public interest (a fate also enjoyed by Netflix’s The Crown) and the Duchess of Sussex has gone on to feature guests including by not limited to Constance Wu, Margaret Cho and Jenny Slate.
This week she was Breaking Down the Bimbo with ultimate noughties style icon Paris Hilton. Formally known as the heir to the Hilton Hotels megachain, Paris became best known for her hedonistic life on the road with then best friend Nicole Ritchie on their reality series The Simple Life.
The pair were ic-on-ique as the ditzy airheads who knew a kitchen only as a ‘cooking room’, but now admits the caricature ‘got out of hand’ and still defines her to this day - you only have to look at Versace's recent Milan Fashion Week show to see that the seeds sown during the fateful noughties continue to bear (pink, sparkly) fruit.
Speaking of her reality debut which was, at the time, nowhere near as manufactured as its modern counterparts, Paris told Meghan, ‘The producers just said we want Nicole to be the troublemaker and Paris, we want you to be the rich dumb blonde and that's when I started like really playing into that character. During that time it was encouraged to be dumb and bubbly. I look at it now and I'm like, I think it's so much cooler to be smart and intelligent, but back then it was almost like they wanted.’
She continued, ‘I almost got stuck and lost in the character and at some point it was like lines got blurred and it was like I forgot who I was.’
It’s not the first time Paris has spoken out about the way she was portrayed on the show, telling Flare magazine in 2020, ‘I think the biggest misconception is that people still think I'm the ditsy blonde from The Simple Life. What most people don't know is that it was a character that I came up with for the show and created for several reasons.’
Unsurprisingly, Meghan has faced her own stereotyping when it comes to brains versus beauty; in 2006 she worked the ‘glamorous assistant’ role on the American version of Deal or No Deal, a job she said she was ‘thankful’ for, ‘but not for how it made me feel, which was not smart.’
The whole premise of Meghan’s podcast is to shine a light on the archetypes and stereotypes which serve to limit women in what they can achieve and to box them in. ‘I ended up quitting the show. I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage,’ she added. ‘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 the word bimbo.’