Meghan and Harry stepped away from royal duties in 2020
Meghan Markle has said she “felt uncomfortable being out in the world” and “craved safety” when she was a working royal.
The Duchess of Sussex was attending her friend Oprah Winfrey’s book club session when she made the revelation.
The 43-year-old was sat in the front row of the event, before taking to the stage to speak to those in attendance about her love of bookstores.
The mother-of-two said that bookstores had been places of solace for her during her troubled time as a working royal in the UK.
Town & Country reports that Markle recalled one occasion when she went to a bookstore in New York during a visit to the city in 2019.
She said: “For me, sneaking to New York five years ago was a really big deal. I was still so uncomfortable being out in the world. The safety of what I was craving, I knew I could find in a bookstore.”
The duchess’s struggles during her time as a working member of the royal family are well-documented.
Markle married Prince Harry in 2018 and together the couple have had two children Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.
However, Meghan and Harry stepped down as senior royals in January 2020 and moved to California that summer.
In March 2021, the Duchess of Sussex revealed in an interview with Oprah that she had experienced suicidal thoughts during her time in the UK as part of the Royal Family.
Markle said during the interview that she “just didn’t want to be alive anymore” and had considered taking her own life.
Last month, she explained why she decided to open up about her struggled in the interview and said she “hasn’t really scraped the surface” on her experience.
