Meghan's Friend Says She Had Seemed "Lonely" and "Silenced" Lately

"[She gave up] everything she knew for love, only to be, as she saw it, hounded and pilloried.”

Prince Harry visit to Cardiff Castle
(Image credit: WPA Pool)
  • Meghan Markle seemed "lonely" and "silenced" before she and Prince Harry announced their split with the royal family.
  • Their friend and journalist Bryony Gordon, who published a piece about her impression of the situation in The Telegraph, said it seemed like Harry was once again "living out the trauma" of Princess Diana's death.

This morning, Queen Elizabeth finally made a substantial statement about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's decision to "step back as senior members" of the royal family, which will likely involve a deal with Disney and working on their own nonprofit. While the drastic step may feel like a rash decision, according to one of their friends, it seems like Meghan felt way more lonely, silenced, and "hounded" than anyone may have expected.

According to a recent Telegraph report from Meghan and Harry's journalist friend Bryony Gordon, the Sussexes "seemed subdued and sad" when she saw them late last year. She remembered visiting them at Frogmore Cottage and said, "They lacked the energy or sparkle I had seen in them previously."

Gordon, who was the journalist Harry turned to for his game-changing interview about his mental health struggles, also said Meghan spoke with her about "unexpected issues" that she faced as a royal as well as “the loneliness; the sudden muting of her voice; the giving up of everything she knew for love, only to be, as she saw it, hounded and pilloried.”

And when Bryony asked Meghan why she didn't just "jack it all in," a.k.a. give it all up, she got the impression that Meghan had seriously considered it.

As for Harry specifically, Bryony wrote: "All the hope that Prince Harry had expressed when we spoke about his mental health in 2017 appeared to have evaporated." On top of that, she thought he was "living out the trauma he had experienced as a 12-year-old—walking behind his mother’s coffin on global television—again and again and again."

It's a devastating read on the situation. Hopefully Meghan and Harry finally find some peace of mind once they fully transition into their new roles.

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Shannon Barbour

Shannon is a news writer at Cosmopolitan.com, and when she's not obsessing about Cardi B, she's thinking about Justin Bieber and still trying to memorize Beyoncé's Beychella choreography.