Meghan Markle claimed she was “the most trolled person in the entire world” during a recent podcast interview concerning mental health.
“I can speak personally, too. 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 what was able to just be manufacture and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable. That’s so big that 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 said.
“And so I think from my standpoint, and part of the work that we do is, from our own personal experience being able to talk to people and understand that even though our experience is unique to us and obviously can seem very different to what people experience on the day to day, it’s still a human experience,” she said.
The podcast, called Teenager Therapy, is hosted by five teenagers who invited the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry on the show to mark World Mental Health Day.
During the 30-minute interview, one of the hosts asked Markle how she is doing following her royal wedding and having her first child.
“Isn’t that funny, it was about a year ago that someone asked me that. We were on a tour in South Africa and on the last day of the tour, man I was tired. I was just about to give Archie a bath … I was exhausted,” she responded.
“She was still breastfeeding at the time,” Harry added.
“Oh, yeah, so a lot of people don’t know, it’s like running a marathon, so between every official engagement I was running back to make sure our son was fed. And, yeah, it was a lot. But, at the very end, the journalist asked me ‘Are you OK?’ And I didn’t realize that my answer would receive such an interest from around the world. Because I said well, thanks people haven’t really asked me if I’m OK. I didn’t think about that answer. I just answered honestly because I was in a moment of vulnerability, because I was tired, because there was no presentation. It was just, here’s where I am, I’m a mom who’s with a four-and-a-half month old baby and we are tired. But I think it speaks to the fact that the reason it resonated with people is because everyone wants to be asked if they’re OK,” Markle said.
The couple has recently advocated for people to vote ahead of the November election, with Markle teaming up with feminist Gloria Steinem to personally call voters to increase turnout.
“The first thing we did, and why she came to see me, was we sat at the dining room table here, where I am right now, and cold-called voters. And said, ‘Hello, I’m Meg,’ and, ‘Hello, I’m Gloria,’ and, ‘Are you going to vote?’” Steinem told Access Hollywood last month.
The couple also appeared to take a swipe at President Trump in a video released for Time’s annual list of most influential people, with Markle saying this year marks “the most important election of our lifetime.”
Harry told viewers that although he is not an American citizen and can’t vote in the United States, “It’s vital that we reject hate speech, misinformation, and online negativity.”
Trump responded to the comments wishing Harry “a lot of luck.”
“I’m not a fan of hers. And I would say this — and she probably has heard that — but I wish a lot of luck to Harry because he’s going to need it,” the president told reporters during a briefing.
Markle has previously criticized Trump, calling him “divisive” and “misogynistic” in a 2016 interview.
“Of course, Trump is divisive — think about female voters alone. I think it was in 2012, the Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points. That’s a huge number, and as misogynistic as Trump is, and so vocal about it, that’s a huge chunk of it,” she said. “You’re not just voting for a woman if it’s Hillary [Clinton]. Yes, you’re voting because she’s a woman, but certainly, because Trump has made it easy to see that you don’t really want that kind of world that he’s painting.”
