Meghan Markle Says She Lied to a Casting Director to Break Into Acting in an Unearthed Clip

In an old clip from her Hollywood days, Meghan Markle says she lied to a casting director about her union status to break into acting.

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  • Before she was a member of the royal family, Meghan Markle says she was a "fraud."
  • In an unearthed clip on the Daily Mail from her acting days, Meghan shares a story about telling a little white lie about her union status to break into acting.
  • "To this day those casting directors will never hire me," she said of the incident. "I was such a fraud."

Even Meghan Markle feels like a fraud sometimes.

In an unearthed video from her Suits days, Meghan called herself a "fraud" while discussing getting her big break in show business—and the little white lie she told to make it happen.

"I was Taft-Harteleyed, which is I pretended I was union.... and you have to... it was the pilot called Century City with Héctor Elizondo," she explained during a panel discussion to promote her former USA series, Suits. "And I got there, and they're like—'so you're union.' And I'm like, 'Of course I'm union. I mean, yeah, absolutely.' And then I wasn't."

The story is hilarious (and the lie pretty harmless) in retrospect, but at the time, Meghan said she was still facing some repercussions for the fib.

"To this day those casting directors will never hire me," she added. "I was such a fraud." 

Watch the clip, which the Daily Mail unearthed recently, below: 

Meghan calls it "fraud," other might call it an excellent display of improvisational acting. Either way, we're pretty sure those casting directors would be thrilled to hire Meghan now.

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Weekend Editor at Cosmopolitan

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with over 10 years of professional experience covering entertainment of all genres, from new movie and TV releases to nostalgia, and celebrity news. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.