The Duchess of Sussex's shocking confession is put under the microscope. Photo / AP
OPINION:
It's not often that the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, the most senior member of the Church of England aside from the monarch, ends up in the same sentence as billionaire and icon Oprah Winfrey but we are far, far beyond normal times.
However that was of course the case in the days after Winfrey's thunderclap of an interview with Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex in early March last year.
While the trio fed the Sussexes' chickens (see what I told you about normal)? the duchess, oh-so-casually, told the TV titan "You know, three days before our wedding we got married. No one knows that, but we called the archbishop and we just said, 'Look, this thing, this spectacle, is for the world, but we want our union between us.'"
Record scratch; dramatic, abrupt, screeching record scratch, in fact.
So, what then, the world wondered, was that huge white confection involving a reported $190,000 worth of flowers and their own gospel choir that we all watched back in May 2018?
Enter the Archbishop, unlikely, temporary media star.
Several weeks later, during an interview with an Italian newspaper he poured cold water on the secret wedding story, saying that the couple's "legal wedding" was the one we had all watched on the tele.
The oddity of that wedding story was just one of the points that Meghan made during the two-hour sit-down interview, which later did not quite hold up to scrutiny.
Now a new book, Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown out this week, has called into question one of the Duchess of Sussex's most shocking brickbats: That when she suffered suicidal thoughts during her pregnancy with son Archie, she went to Buckingham Palace for help only to be callously rebuffed, her requests met with an icy indifference that was nothing short of plain cruel.
Meghan told Oprah there came a point when she "just didn't want to be alive any more. And that was a very clear and real and frightening constant thought.
"I went to the institution, and I said that I needed to go somewhere to get help. I said that, 'I've never felt this way before, and I need to go somewhere'. And I was told that I couldn't, that it wouldn't be good for the institution."
"I went to one of the most senior people just to ... to get help.
"I went to human resources, and I said, 'I just really — I need help' ... And I remember this conversation like it was yesterday, because they said, 'My heart goes out to you, because I see how bad it is, but there's nothing we can do to protect you because you're not a paid employee of the institution.'"
In Courtiers, Low delves into this very moment, writing: "It is a strange thought: would anyone really tell a pregnant woman that she could not get the mental help she needs because it would not be 'good for the institution'? However, until one hears from the other person in the room, it is difficult to know exactly what to make of this."
Low's book raises the possibility that the person that Meghan went to see was Samantha Cohen, an Australian and 17-year Palace veteran who, reportedly at the behest of the Queen, had become the Sussexes' private secretary ahead of their wedding to help ease the way.
Low writes: "I have known Sam Cohen for over a decade and would say that she is a person of great warmth and empathy. I find it difficult to imagine her rebutting Meghan's plea in such a cold-hearted way."
Historian and The Crown consultant Robert Lacey, author of last year's equal bombshell Battle of Brothers, is on the same page: "No one who knows the very human Sam Cohen could imagine her greeting Meghan's request for emotional help with indifference or the snootiness described by the duchess. Quite the contrary."
While Low makes it clear that "the truth remains that Meghan appears to have been in a bad place" he also wonders why the duchess did not turn to her husband Harry, who had himself already sought therapy, arguing, "He could have helped Meghan find help. It would certainly seem more appropriate to ask your husband for support in such circumstances than your staff."
Yes, Low says, Harry had told Oprah he had not gone to the royal family to seek help, explaining "I guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them."
However, to Low, "there is also something not quite right here," who goes on to make the case that by this point in time, mental health had become a core component of Harry's work with he and William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, having set up their own mental health charity Heads Together three years earlier.
"Could he not help Meghan in the same way?" Low wonders. "And if he could not, he must have met scores of people through Heads Together who could have offered help and support. As one well-informed source said at the time: 'He would have known exactly where to turn, who to call, what to do.'"
Meghan also told Oprah that she had "reached out to" "one of my husband's mom's best friends, one of Diana's best friends" who had become "a friend and confidant" to the duchess.
In Courtiers, Low identifies that person as Julia Samuel, who was incredibly close to the late princess and herself a psychotherapist and counsellor. Samuel, according to Low, "would also, presumably, have been an ideal person to go to for help."
Now let's get one thing straight here – double bold and triple underlined, please. It is beyond doubt that Meghan suffered and paid a steep personal cost for her time as a card-carrying HRH. How could anyone not be deeply affected when she told Oprah of one night the Sussexes attended an engagement at the Royal Albert Hall and that "every time that those lights went down in that Royal Box, I was just weeping, and he was gripping my hand."
To co-opt the #MeToo motto, believe all women. Or, in this case, believe all people who say they suffered suicidal thoughts. Thinking about Meghan's experience, it must have been an incredibly dark and scary place for the mother-to-be to find herself, thousands of kilometres away from her mother and her friends.
However, I suppose the point Low is getting at is that there were avenues that the duke and duchess could have pursued to try and find the support that she so clearly needed that they don't, based on available reporting, have gone down.
There is, as always, a bigger point. Meghan, when she sat down with Oprah, became the third wife of a senior member of the royal family to have told the world that being a Windsor WAG took such a profound and devastating toll on their mental health.
In 1992, Andrew Morton's nuclear bomb of a biography (slash really autobiography given that Diana was his source) revealed that the princess had attempted suicide on five occasions. (As she told Morton, after one attempt: "The Queen comes out, absolutely horrified, shaking – she was so frightened ... Charles went out riding and when he came back, you know, it was just dismissal, total dismissal. He just carried on out of the door.")
In 2016, Fergie admitted that after her split from Prince Andrew, things got so bad that those close to her feared she might take her own life. "One of my good friends who was looking after me, she did think every time she came into the room that I would have committed suicide," she has said.
Then last year, the duchess revealed the horrifying consequences being at the centre of a tabloid frenzy in the '80s and '90s had had (and still had) on her psychological well being, saying that during her time as an HRH she developed "major mental health problems because of the trauma." ("'Bad Fergie' sold a lot of papers," she told People.)
Even one of the royal family's biggest success stories, Prince Edward's wife, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, a former PR dynamo turned loyal, nude-hose wearing Palace foot soldier, told the Times in 2020 of making that leap: "Certainly it took me a while to find my feet. The frustration was I had to reduce my expectations of what I could actually do." (And that is just a depressing thing to hear a smart, ambitious woman admit.)
When it comes to what women who marry into the royal family face, Buckingham Palace has a very serious case to answer; however it's a case they have entirely refused to acknowledge or sort out.
At the end of the day, the Palace bears a huge responsibility and they have a duty of care that they are abjectly failing to provide. What does it say about an institution if 50 per cent of the most high-profile 'hires' (out of the six women – Diana, Fergie, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Camilla, the Queen Consort, Kate, and Meghan) have gone public with the fact that royal life had such an extreme impact on their mental health that there were suicide fears?
If it was revealed that half of the workforce of any major corporation were so unhappy they had thought about ending their lives, there would be a full-blown government inquiry stuffed with so many eminent KCs they would have to get more chairs in.
What Buckingham Palace has completely failed to do in the wake of the Sussexes' Oprah deluge is in any way concede that they might have failed Meghan and that they were simply considering taking any sort of steps to prevent this situation coming to pass. How bloody sad is it that nothing would seem to have changed in the 30 years since the revelations of Diana's suicide attempts?
In the decades to come, why would any person in their right mind risk suffering so abjectly and continuously, like Diana, Fergie and Meghan and even consider settling down with Prince George, Princess Charlotte or Prince Louis?
There is one particular line from that Oprah interview, the truth of which becomes ever more horribly apparent. "I can assure you," Harry said, "marrying a prince or princess is not all it's made up to be."
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years' experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
Where to get help:
• Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (available 24/7)
• Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO) (available 24/7)
• Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234 (available 24/7)
• Kidsline: 0800 543 754 (available 24/7)
• Whatsup: 0800 942 8787 (12pm to 11pm)
• Depression helpline: 0800 111 757 or text 4202 (available 24/7)
• Anxiety helpline: 0800 269 4389 (0800 ANXIETY) (available 24/7)
• Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155
If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
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