A tearful Meghan Markle said Sunday she contemplated suicide while pregnant with son Archie, amid the pressure of dealing with life as a royal and her treatment at the hands of the British media.
“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” the emotional duchess, 39, told Oprah Winfrey in her highly anticipated TV interview.
The former actress said she “just didn’t see a solution” given the barrage of negative reports about her.
“I would sit up at night, and I was just like, ‘I don’t understand how all of this is being churned out,'” she said.
She said her mother and friends, referring to the Palace, told her, ” ‘Meg, they’re not protecting you.’
“And I realized it was all happening just because I was breathing,” Markle said.
Winfrey asked her, “Were you thinking of harming yourself? Were you having suicidal thoughts?”
Markle replied, “Yes. This was very clear.”
She said she was scared to tell her husband Prince Harry but eventually did.
“I knew that if I didn’t say it that I would do it,” she said. “And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.
“I remember how [Harry] just cradled me,” the duchess said.
Markle said she went to a senior member of the royal institution for help at one point but was rebuffed.
One on occasion, in January 2019, while she was pregnant with Archie, Markle said she went to an event at Royal Albert Hall against Harry’s advice because she was afraid of what she would do if left alone.
“I had just had that conversation with Harry that morning,” she said. “We had to go to this event, and I remember him saying, ‘I don’t mind,’ I said, ‘I can’t be left alone.'”
She said she sobbed while sitting in the royal box, only putting on a brave face for photos once the lights were turned on.
“If you zoom in, you can see how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine. You can see the whites of our knuckles, because we are smiling and doing our job, but we’re both just trying to hold on,” Markle said.
“Everytime that those lights went dim that royal box, I was just weeping, and he was gripping my hand.”
The next day, Markle said she went to a senior member of the royal institution for help and the possibility of seeking professional care but was rebuffed because it “wouldn’t be good for the institution.”
Markle said she couldn’t exactly try to seek help herself, noting “I couldn’t, you know, call an Uber to the palace.”
The former royal also revealed Sunday night that members of the royal family discussed with Prince Harry how dark their son’s skin might be.
Markle spoke about learning her son would not be given the royal title of prince, either.