Meghan Markle Shares Her Feelings on Being the 'Most Trolled Person in the Entire World' in 2019
On a special World Mental Health Day interview for the podcast Teenager Therapy, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry spoke about the importance of mental healthcare, especially during a pandemic. Meghan, in
particular, spoke about the challenges she's faced as someone in the public eye. She told the hosts of the podcast that she sees the harm that social media can do and how it "ends up being a place where there's a lot of disconnection."
"I can speak personally, too," she said. "I'm told that in 2019 I was 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 or with a baby but was able to just be manufactured and churned out. It's almost unsurvivable. That's so big you can't even think of what that feels like, because I don't care if you're 15 or you're 25, if people are saying things about you that aren't true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging." She added that she and Harry use their own personal experiences to talk to people, while keeping in mind that everyone' experiences are different. "We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt. We all know what it feels like to be isolated or othered."
Meghan also brought up the essential tools that everyone uses to feel better and "anchored" in their mental health. She added that she likes to journal. "It allows me to reflect on where I've come from, and with that comes a lot of perspective. I think most of us can all connect with the idea that sometimes when you're going through something it feels like the biggest thing in the entire world. I think when you look back it in a year and yeah, it was still big, it wasn't that big, comparatively. And it's not to diminish what it was, it's just suddenly when you have some perspective that is only visible when you have people to check you with that...I think that's really valuable so that everything doesn't become insurmountable, so there's always a way to overcome something."
This interview comes after a huge year for Meghan and Harry. Eight months after their son's birth, they announced they were planning to "step back" from their roles as senior royals. The couple eventually ended up in L.A. with their now nearly 18-month-old son and moved into their Montecito home this summer.
In July, the couple filed an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit over photographs taken of Archie by drone. On Thursday, photo-news agency X-17 issued an apology on this issue to Meghan and Harry and has agreed to turn over the photos.
"We apologize to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their son for the distress we have caused," X17 said in a statement. "We were wrong to offer these photographs and commit to not doing so again."
Listen to the entire interview here.