Meghan Markle says that her struggles with suicidal ideation were a lot worse than she first admitted.
On a new episode of CBS Sunday Morning, Markle and Prince Harry sat down with host Jane Pauley to talk about their latest initiative, The Parents Network, which aims to support parents who have had their child “affected by social media harms” and experienced loss from suicide.
“When you've been through any level of pain or trauma, I believe part of our healing journey, certainly part of mine, is being able to be really open about it,” said the Duchess of Sussex to Pauley about opening up about her experiences with bullying she’s endured in the public eye.
“I haven't really scraped the surface on my experience, but I do think that I would never want someone else to feel that way and I would never want someone else to be making those sort of plans, and I would never want someone else to not be believed,” she continued.
“So if me voicing what I have overcome will save someone or encourage someone in their life to really genuinely check in on them and not assume that [their] appearance is good, so everything's okay? Then that's worth it, I'll take a hit for that.”
Markle first confessed that she struggled with suicidal thoughts while living in the UK during the highly-publicized interview she and husband Prince Harry, 39, gave Oprah in 2021.
“I was really ashamed to say it at the time, and a shame to have to admit it to Harry especially, because I know how much loss he suffered,” Markle told Oprah at the time, likely referring to the death of Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, in 1997.
“But I knew that if I didn't say it, that I would do it and I just didn't want to be alive anymore.”
Despite being constantly attacked in the British tabloids with racist headlines and followed mercilessly by the paparazzi, Harry confessed that the couple’s pleas for help were “met with total silence” during an episode of the Apple TV+ series The Me You Can’t See.
Harry also said at the time that Markle’s suicidal ideation played a major role in his decision to step down as a senior member of the royal family.
The Parents Initiative is in association with the couple's Archewell Foundation. The official launch in Santa Barbara, California, was timed for August 4, in tandem with Markle’s birthday.
Per their official website, the Parents Initiative “will work to unite and uplift parents and caregivers and systematically change the social media platforms and devices that create a harmful and dangerous environment for young people around the world.”
“I think one of the scariest things that we've learned over the course of the last years that social media has been around and more so recently is the fact that it could happen to absolutely anybody,” Prince Harry told Pauley on CBS Sunday Morning.
“We always talk about in the olden days if your kids were under your roof, you knew what they were up to, at least they were safe,” he continued. “And now they can be in the next door room on a tablet or on a phone and can be going down these rabbit holes and, and before you know it, within hours, they could be taking their life.”
“At this point, we've got to the stage where almost every parent needs to be a first responder and even the best first responders in the world wouldn't be able to tell the signs of possible suicide like that. That is the terrifying piece of this,” he added.