In new episodes released Thursday, the 66-year-old recalls the “Suits” alum telling her that “she had wanted to take her own life.”
Ragland remembers, “That really broke my heart because I knew that it was bad. … That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear.”
The former yoga instructor notes that both she and Markle’s husband, Prince Harry, couldn’t “protect” the former actress from the media hate she received amid her relationship with the royal.
“[She was] just constantly be picked at by these vultures just picking away at her spirit,” Ragland says of Markle, 41, “actually think[ing] of not wanting to be here.”
Ragland’s emotional interview comes nearly two years after the “Deal or No Deal” alum publicly shared her battle with suicidal thoughts for the first time.
“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” Markle told Oprah Winfrey during a bombshell March 2021 interview. “I knew that if I didn’t say it that I would do it. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.”
Prince Harry, Doria Ragland, Meghan Markle and Archie“That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear,” Ragland said on “Harry & Meghan.”Netflix
The Duchess of Sussex explained that while she was pregnant with her son, Archie, in January 2019, she told Harry that she couldn’t “be left alone” ahead of an event at Royal Albert Hall.
“If you zoom in, you can see how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine,” Markle said. “You can see the whites of our knuckles, because we are smiling and doing our job, but we’re both just trying to hold on.”
Harry, 38, admits in the Netflix show that he “hates” himself for how he reacted to his wife’s confession.
“I didn’t deal with it particularly well,” the former military pilot recalls. “What she needed from me was so much more than i was able to give.”
As for Markle, she says, “I wanted to go somewhere to get help, but I wasn’t allowed to. They were concerned about how that would look for the institution.”
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The couple left England in January 2020 and now live in Montecito, Calif., with Archie, 3, and their 1-year-old daughter, Lilibet.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
