Tag Duchess

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Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex turned to journalling to help her cope with the mental health struggle of becoming the “most trolled person in the entire world” last year.

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The former Suits star, who wed Prince Harry in 2018 and gave birth to their son Archie in 2019, opened up about the emotional toll the negative press had taken on her during a special podcast appearance on Saturday, in honour of World Mental Health Day.

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Sitting down with her husband for the Teenager Therapy interview, conducted by five California high school students, Meghan shared, “I’m told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world – male or female.

“Now for eight months of that, I wasn’t even visible. I was on maternity leave or with the baby, but what was able to be just manufactured and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable…

“I don’t care if you are 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is damaging.”

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Meghan explained how writing about her feelings has enabled her to process all the unwanted attention in the tabloids, as well as adjusting to life as a first-time mother and settling into a new home in her native California.

“Journalling is a very powerful thing,” she said. “It allows me to reflect on where I’ve come from.”

Prince Harry, on the other hand, has embraced a more spiritual approach as he tries to avoid reading any media reports about the couple: “Meditation is key,” he admitted. “I never thought that I would be the person to do that.”

And they are both advocates of communicating their feelings to friends, family members, or professional counsellors, particularly during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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“The sign of strength is talking about it,” Harry explained, revealing the couple has “good days and bad days” dealing with the fallout from their decision to step down as senior members of Britain’s royal family earlier this year.

“Every single one of us has stuff going on.”

“The more you internalize it, the more challenges all of us face,” Meghan added. “Suddenly when you have some perspective, when you have people to check you, it’s really valuable.”

The interview debuted as Harry prepares to return to the U.K. to meet with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, following the pair’s appearance in a September video urging the American public to head to the polls in the U.S. presidential election next month, with the prince calling on voters to “reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity” – an apparent swipe at incumbent Donald Trump.

Their comments were widely thought to have breached royal protocol, as members of the monarchy typically refrain from expressing political views in public.

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Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex suffered another blow as a judge at London’s High Court ruled on Tuesday that newspaper publishers Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) could amend their case ahead of a trial next year.

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The British royal is suing the publisher of the Mail On Sunday and MailOnline over an article which reproduced parts of a “private and confidential” handwritten letter she sent to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in August 2018.

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Last week, the defendants applied for permission to amend their case, arguing the couple had cooperated with a biography about them which was published in August featuring the contents of the letter.

While judge Francesca Kaye said she made no view on the strength of the Mail’s case, the amendments could not be said to be “unarguable or utterly fanciful”.

Despite claims she and her husband Prince Harry “co-operated” with the authors of Finding Freedom, Meghan’s lawyers insist accusations the Duke and Duchess “collaborated” on the project were a “conspiracy theory,” arguing that references to the letter in the book were simply “extracts from the letter lifted from the defendant’s own articles”.

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Meghan is suing Associated Newspapers Ltd over five articles in total – two in the Mail on Sunday and three on MailOnline – which were published in February 2019 and reproduced parts of a handwritten letter she sent to her father in August 2018.

The Duchess is seeking damages for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act. ANL officials deny the allegations and say it will hotly contest the case.

In May, Mr Justice Warby struck out parts of Meghan’s claim, including allegations that the publisher acted “dishonestly” by leaving out certain passages of the letter. She has agreed to cover around $88,000 of the publisher’s legal fees for that hearing.

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