Palace Officials Say They Spent Countless Hours Deleting Abusive Comments Online About Meghan Markle and 1 Other Royal
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry officially stepped down as senior royals on March 31, 2020. The pair moved to Southern California and haven’t been back to the U.K. since. The Sussexes have only made virtual appearances from their new home and kept their young son, Archie, out of the spotlight.
It’s believed that the couple decided to leave royal life behind because they didn’t want to live under a microscope and were fed up with online attacks on the duchess. Palace officials have recently revealed just how bad those attacks were on not only Meghan but also another royal.
Meghan spoke about trying to maintain a ‘stiff upper lip’
The duke and duchess were vocal about their displeasure with the constant press attention and coverage they received as senior royals and the hateful comments directed at the former Suits star.
In the 2019 documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, Meghan revealed that she had a hard time trying to act like the negativity didn’t affect her.
“I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a ‘stiff upper lip,’” she told journalist Tom Bradby. “I really tried, but I think that what that does internally is probably really damaging.”
The palace spent hours removing comments about the duchess
Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and Kensington Palace tried to combat the internet trolls and stated that some of the most offensive, sexist, and racist comments would be reported to the authorities.
Kensington Palace officials revealed that had to spend countless hours a week deleting thousands of abusive comments about Meghan.
“It was pretty vile for a while,” one source told The Sun, adding, “There are automated tools which can help to police the very inappropriate comments getting through and also manual moderation — but there are often thousands of comments. It only takes a couple of people to stir up a really nasty conversation with people being very aggressive.”
After stepping down, Meghan and Harry deleted their social media account.
Officials also deleted nasty comments about another royal
Meghan wasn’t the only royal who trolls posted negative comments about. There were also nasty things written online about Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.
In the documentary Kate: The Making of a Modern Queen, royal correspondent Emily Nash talked about the tough position Kate is in being married to the future king and the pressure on her to always be perfect.
“You have to remember she’s perhaps one of the most scrutinized royals ever, because of the rise of smartphones and social media — any tiny slip up or mistake could go viral within seconds,” Nash said. “And she must be really conscious of that and it must be a challenge.”
Queen Elizabeth’s daughter Princess Anne, who dealt with media scrutiny during her life, also stated that things are harder for the younger generation of royals today because of social media.
“The pressure that is applied to the younger members of the family is always worse because that’s what the media is interested in, and that’s hard sometimes to deal with,” she explained in the documentary Anne: The Princess Royal at 70. “But there was no social media in my day, so it probably has made it more difficult.”
