Celebrity2 min(s) read
Published 10:44 11 Oct 2020 GMT
Former Suits actress Meghan Markle has been subject to much scrutiny after marrying Prince Harry in 2018 before the pair sensationally "quit" the monarchy earlier this year.
Now, in a new podcast for World Mental health Day, the Duchess of Sussex has claimed that she was the most trolled person in the entire world "male or female" in 2019.
She made the revelations with Harry alongside three Californian high school students on an episode of their popular podcast Teenager Therapy.
Markle said: ["For] eight months of that, I wasn't even visible, I was on maternity leave with the baby – but what was able to be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable, it's so big you can't even think what that feels like."
Listen to the podcast below:
[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqbCcW00Vwo]]
She added: "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."
Markle said that this could be particularly damaging for those subject to it during the coronavirus lockdown, when "if you’re not in school then you are finding yourself on your devices or online more."
She added: "Yes, it's a great way to connect but it also ends up being a place where there is a lot of disconnection.
"We all know what it feels like to have our feelings hurt, we all know what it feels like to be isolated, and I think that's why the work you guys are doing here is so important."
The former senior royals then opened up about their experiences of grief and loss, introducing themselves on the podcast as just Meghan and Harry.
They spoke of the dangers of social media and the news and said that it should be consumed as carefully as a person's diet because it can have such a profound effect on their mental health.
Harry said it is "very easy to be sucked in and consumed by negativity", but said we all have "the choice to be able to cut that out of our lives."
He added: "Hate following has become a thing, you don’t need to do that. Just as much as we worry about, be concerned, and take notice of what we put in our bellies as a diet, the same applies for our eyes and our mind, what we're consuming is affecting us.
"For me, I made the choice not to read it, not to see it, and to remove myself from that, and to very much focus on the uplifting and the hopeful side.’"
The Sussexes gave the new podcast interview from Santa Barbara, California, where they moved earlier this year after stepping down as senior members of the Royal Family.
