Meghan Markle had Prince Harry by her side as she answered a personal question during their latest joint interview.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared on CBS Sunday Morning in a segment that aired on Aug. 4, Meghan’s 43rd birthday, to speak about The Parents Network, a new initiative to support families whose children have been impacted by online harm. During the sit-down, anchor Jane Pauley asked Meghan about her decision to open up about her own thoughts of suicide, which she revealed in a March 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey saying that she “just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
Pauley began, “You had an experience that connects you to these families,” referring to Meghan’s previous comments about thoughts of self-harm. The anchor then paused to comment on Meghan’s gesture of putting her hand on Prince Harry’s knee, saying, “I see you touch your husband’s hand in just the way I knew that you would be looking after each other.”
Pauley said she could see Meghan was “uncomfortable with my even going there.”
Meghan replied, “I understand why you are though. I wasn’t expecting it, but I understand why you are. Because there is a through-line, I think.”
“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,” Duchess of Sussex continued. “I 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 added, “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 the appearance is good so everything is OK, then that’s worth it. I’ll take a hit for that.”
Meghan has previously spoken about “bullying and abuse that I was experiencing on social media and online,” sharing at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas earlier this year that it was at its worst when she was pregnant with son Prince Archie, now 5, and daughter Princess Lilibet, now 3, and when the children were infants.
“You just think about that, and to really wrap your head around why people would be so hateful. It’s not catty, it’s cruel. And why you would do that, certainly, when you’re pregnant, with a newborn, we all know as moms, it’s such a tender and sacred time,” she said.
“I think you know, you could either succumb to it, nearly succumb to how painful that it is, and maybe in some regards, because I was pregnant, that mammalian instinct just kicked in, you do everything you can to protect your child, and as a result, protect yourself too,” she continued.
Meghan Markle at SXSW on March 8, 2024.
SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty
The CBS Sunday Morning segment showed Meghan and Prince Harry, 39, meeting with families who are already part of The Parents Network, greeting them warmly with hugs.
Pauley narrated the footage, “On a brilliant summer day near Santa Barbara last week, a group of friends got together. This was not your typical receiving line. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, better known as Harry and Meghan, are definitely big huggers.”
“It was a meeting of an exclusive club, and one that none of them wanted to join,” she continued. “Most of the parents here have lost a child, directly or indirectly, as a result of exposure to online social media. Harry and Meghan are trying to give them and parents like them someplace to turn for help.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in Nigeria on May 10, 2024.
KOLA SULAIMON/AFP via Getty
The Parents Network and its “No Child Lost to Social Media” campaign continues Meghan and Prince Harry’s work through their non-profit organization, the Archewell Foundation, to provide a support network for parents dealing with grief or who have children managing mental health conditions resulting from online exposure.
James Holt, Executive Director of The Archewell Foundation, said in a statement, “Over the past two years, alongside our co-founders Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, our team has engaged deeply with parents and young people about the repercussions of social media on their mental, physical and emotional well-being. It became strikingly clear that there is a critical need for connection and community among those who understand the pain, fear, and isolation caused by social media’s impact on children. We believe in the transformative power of community, and that is why we have created this network — to connect those who face these challenges and offer mutual support.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attend the ESPY Awards on July 11, 2024.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
As a parent of two, Meghan spoke about her desire to protect Prince Archie and Princess Lili from harmful online content.
“Our kids are young — they’re 3 and 5. They’re amazing,” she told Pauley. “But all you want to do as parents is protect them. So as we can see what’s happening in the online space, we know that there’s a lot of work to be done there, and we’re just happy to be able to be a part of change for good.”
Prince Harry said, “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. That is the terrifying piece of this.”
Meghan encouraged everyone to “look at it through the lens of ‘What if it was my daughter? What if it was my son?’ “
“If you look at it through the lens as a parent, there’s no way to see that any other way than to try to find a solution,” she said.
