Meghan Markle made some jaw-dropping revelations about her struggles with online abuse during a recent episode of Teenager Therapy’s podcast that was devoted to World Mental Health Day. The Duchess of Sussex said that she had faced “almost unsurvivable” attacks and was told that in 2019 she became “the most trolled person in the entire world – male or female.”
"Now eight months of that, I wasn't even visible. I was on maternity leave with the baby - but what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable,” Markle said as she was joined by her husband Prince Harry.
“That's so big you can’t even think about what that feels like. Because I don't care if you’re 15 or 25. If people are saying things about you that aren't true what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging,” the Duchess added.
The couple spent some time discussing the impact of coronavirus pandemic on mental health and online activity, as well as how the bullying experience has influenced their future work.
“We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt, we all know what it feels like to be isolated or othered... we are all figuring it out,” the 39-year-old celebrity said.
Now, Markle revealed, she was doing “really well,” despite troubles brought by the COVID-19 health crisis.
Her husband, for his part, noted that he usually tries to avoid engaging with negative comment on social media, as he “made the choice not to read it, not to see it, and to remove myself from that".
“What I've seen so much over the years is people hiding behind usernames on the online space. There are things that are said digitally that nobody would say in person, of course,” the Queen’s grandson added.
Prince Harry has usually been a strong defender of his wife, accusing British tabloids last autumn of “waging campaigns against individuals with no thought to the consequences,” something he compared with what his mother Princess Diana had experienced from the media. The Duke of Sussex said that he could not be a “silent witness” to Meghan’s “private suffering".
In an October 2019 interview with Tom Bradby, which was held as a part of an ITV documentary, Meghan revealed that she was actually “not okay” as the time within royal family has been especially challenging for her.