I didn’t want to be alive any more
She ‘begged for help – but Palace rebuffed her’
MEGHAN said she ‘didn’t want to be alive any more’ as she struggled with her new role as a duchess.
She said she was plagued by thoughts of harming herself while pregnant with Archie.
The 39-year-old said her husband ‘cradled’ her when she opened up about the ‘dark place’ she was in – but claimed officials wouldn’t help her.
Prince Harry has previously revealed he needed professional help to cope with his mother’s death. In 2017, he said he had ‘probably been close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions’ before he sought counselling.
But Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that she was rebuffed by a senior Palace official when, on the ‘verge of suicide’, she ‘begged’ for help.
She alleged that the official, from human resources, told her ‘it wouldn’t be good for the institution’ if Meghan sought treatment. The duchess claimed that negative coverage and online trolling drove her to contemplate killing herself.
She said she ‘just didn’t see a solution’ and would sit up at night considering suicide. Meghan said she felt ‘ashamed’ to tell Harry, knowing how much loss he had suffered. She added: ‘But I knew that if I didn’t say it, that I would do it. And I, I
‘I can’t be left alone’
just didn’t, I just didn’t want to be alive any more. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought. And I remember how he just cradled me.’
Meghan said she was still ‘haunted’ by a photograph taken hours after she had opened up to Harry about ‘how dark of a place’ she was in.
The picture – taken at the premiere of Cirque du Soleil’s Totem at the Royal Albert Hall on January 16, 2019, less than four months before Archie was born – was described by a friend as ‘so great’.
But Meghan said the ‘truth’ behind the glamorous image was that hours earlier, on the steps of Frogmore Cottage, she had told Harry about her suicidal thoughts. Harry told her that he did not think she could attend the engagement, but she replied: ‘I can’t be left alone.’
She told Miss Winfrey: ‘If you zoom in [on the photograph], what I see is how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine, you can see the white of our knuckles. We are smiling and doing our job but we’re both just trying to hold on and every time those lights went down in that Royal Box, I was just weeping.’
She said she approached a senior member of staff the following day to say she was concerned for her men
Every time those lights went down in that Royal Box, I was just weeping MEGHAN
tal health and that she needed professional help. She claimed she could still recall the conversation like it was yesterday because she was told ‘there’s nothing we can do to protect you, because you’re not a paid employee of the institution’.
Meghan insisted she was unable to check into a hospital by herself because ‘you can’t just call an Uber to the Palace’.
Miss Winfrey appeared shocked by the allegations saying it seemed like Meghan was trapped despite being on ‘the verge of suicide’. Meghan said that was an accurate interpretation. The duchess said she had then ‘reached out’ to one of Princess Diana’s best friends for support. Both Harry and William have campaigned on mental health issues.
The brothers launched the mental health charity Heads Together in 2017 and have won praise for talking openly about personal issues.
Despite this, in the interview with Oprah, Harry said he did not ask his family to get help for Meghan.
He said ‘that’s just not a conversation that would be had’ because ‘I was ashamed of admitting it to them’. He said he had no idea what to do. ‘I wasn’t prepared for that. I went to a very dark place as well, but I wanted to be there for her. And I was terrified,’ he added.
Yesterday Miss Winfrey recalled that when she first spoke to Meghan, she told her she had been told to ‘be 50 per cent less than she was’. The chat show host said: ‘I remember hearing that in 2018 and said specifically to her “I don’t know how you’re going to survive being half of yourself”.’
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