Meghan Markle used a visit to Batyr at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne on Thursday, April 16, to speak bluntly about the effect of online abuse, telling young people in Australia that she had been 'bullied and attacked' every day for 10 years and was once 'the most trolled person in the entire world.'
Meghan Markle Puts Social Media Industry In The Dock
Speaking to a group of young people linked to the charity, Meghan Markle, 44, tied her own experience directly to the pressures the students described.
'I can speak to that really personally, which is why I like to listen, because it rings true for me in a very real way,' she said, according to PA Media.
She then laid out the scale of what she says she has endured.
'For now, 10 years, every day for 10 years, I have been bullied and attacked. And I was the most trolled person in the entire world. Now, I'm still here,' Meghan Markle told them.
Her focus quickly widened from individual trolls to the architecture of the platforms themselves. She argued that social media companies have little incentive to curb abuse, because outrage and pile-ons generate the very engagement they sell.
Meghan said those companies were 'not incentivised to stop', describing social platforms as 'that industry, that billion-dollar industry, that is completely anchored and predicated on cruelty to get clicks.' In her view, that business model is unlikely to shift on its own. 'That's not going to change. So you have to be stronger than that,' she told the room.
As of this report, the figures underpinning her ten-year claim have not been provided, and no platform has publicly confirmed her status as the 'most trolled' user over any period.
Recently, that hostility has fastened on her lifestyle brand, As Ever. Critics have accused the project of using heavily edited imagery, producing supposedly 'depressing' Christmas content and even altering photographs of her children.
Prince Harry Offers Parallel Confessions
If Meghan Markle's language was stark, Harry's contribution at the same visit was quieter but no less revealing. He told the group that social media had 'led to so much loneliness for so many people' and pivoted to his own history of delaying help.
'I waited until I was literally in the fetal position, much older, lying on the kitchen floor,' he recalled. 'Until I was like, okay maybe this therapy thing — maybe I should try it.'
Later, at a leadership summit, the Duke was even more direct about the long tail of grief after Princess Diana's death when he was 12. He said he had, for years, wanted to walk away from royal life altogether.
'It killed my mum and I was very much against it, and I stuck my head in the sand for years and years,' he admitted.
Harry described a gradual reframing of that burden.
'Eventually I realised: well, hang on, if there was somebody else in this position, how would they be making the most of this platform and this ability and the resources that come with it to make a difference in the world? And also, what would my mum want me to do? And that really changed my own perspective.'
Harry, who now lives in Montecito, California, told audiences he is 'not a city person' and that there was 'no way' his mental health could withstand city life.
Prince Harry Describes Australia's Tougher Line As 'Epic'
Meanwhile, in Australia, where the government has taken some of the world's most aggressive steps on children's access to social media, Harry also leaned into the policy angle. Discussing the ban on social media for under-16s, he stopped short of endorsing the measure outright but praised its intent.
'Australia took the lead,' he said. 'Your government was the first country in the world to bring about a ban. Now we can sit here and debate the pros and cons of a ban — I'm not here to judge that. All I will say is from a responsibility and leadership standpoint — epic. Because so many countries have now followed suit, but it should have never got to a ban.'
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are in Australia to meet young people working in mental health and digital safety, including a visit at Swinburne University of Technology. The couple, who stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and now live in California with their two children, have long framed online abuse and media intrusion as central to their decision to leave frontline royal life.
