Royal Recap: Prince Harry Talks Mental Health, Meghan Markle Shows Off Bump

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It was a busy week for the Royal Family. From Prince Harry's candid interview about his personal mental health journey to Meghan Markle's baby bump making an appearance at Vax Live, it wouldn't be surprising if you missed some of the biggest royal headlines this week. A quick scroll will have you all caught up on everything coming out of Buckingham Palace.

Meghan Markle gives a passionate speech about gender equality at Global Citizen's Vax Live event.

The Duchess of Sussex made a virtual appearance at Global Citizen’s Vax Live event. From her Montecito, California home, Meghan spoke about how women, particularly women of color, have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here's her speech in full:

“The past year has been defined by communities coming together tirelessly and heroically to tackle COVID-19. We’ ve gathered tonight because the road ahead is getting brighter. But it’s going to take every one of us to find our way forward. As campaign chairs of Vax Live, my husband and I believe it’s critical that our recovery prioritizes the health, safety, and success of everyone, and particularly women, who have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic.
With the surge in gender-based violence, the increased responsibility of unpaid care work, and new obstacles that have reversed so much progress for women in the workplace, we're at an inflection point for gender equity. Women, and especially women of color, have seen a generation of economic gain wiped out. Since the pandemic began, nearly five-and-a-half million women have lost work in the U.S., and 47 million women around the world are expected to slip into extreme poverty.
But if we work together to bring vaccines to every country and continent, insist that vaccines are equitably distributed and fairly priced, and ensure that governments around the world are donating their additional vaccines to countries in need, then we can begin to fully rebuild, not only to restore us to where we were before, but to go further and rapidly advance the conditions, opportunity, and mobility for women everywhere.
My husband and I are thrilled to soon be welcoming a daughter. It’s a feeling of joy we share with millions of other families around the world. When we think of her, we think of all the other families around the globe who must be given the ability and support to lead us forward. Their future leadership depends on the decisions we make and the actions we take now to set them up and to set all of us up for a successful, equitable, and compassionate tomorrow.
Now tonight we’ve had a reminder of the things we miss the most, be it music and sporting events, or just physical contact with family and friends, where we can sit together, laugh together and hug one another. Whatever it is, all circles back to the same thing: Connecting as a community. For most of us, this means our local community—our loved ones, our neighborhood, but let’s also think about our global community. Across the world, we’ve struggled together. Now, we deserve to heal together. We want to make sure that as we recover, we recover stronger, that as we rebuild, we rebuild together. Thank you.”

U.K. bookies see odds rise that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will name their daughter after a Royal Family member.

U.K. gambling site Ladbrokes has seen one particular name grow as a popular prediction for baby Sussex. The name Phillipa—the female version of Philip—has gained enormous popularity in the aftermath of Prince Philip's passing. As Harry was quite fond of his late grandfather, it seems like it could be a definite possibility. "The support for baby Philippa is showing no signs of slowing down, and we've been forced to trim the odds again that it's the name for Harry and Meghan's daughter," Jessica O'Reilly of Ladbrokes told People.

Prince Harry talks candidly about his mental health in a new interview.

Prince Harry made an appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast on Thursday (May 13). During their lengthy conversation, the Duke of Sussex candidly spoke about his struggles with Palace life. Though he didn't ultimately step down until he was 35-years-old, Harry revealed he thought about wanting to quit as early as his twenties.

"In my early twenties, it was a case of, I don't want this job, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be doing this," Harry said. "Look what it did to my mom, how am I ever going to settle down, have a wife and a family when I know that it's gonna happen again because I know I've seen behind the curtain, I've seen the business model — I know how this operation runs and how it works. I don't want to be part of this."

Harry continued to struggle with these feelings over the course of the next decade. It wasn't until he met his now-wife, Meghan Markle, that he decided to seek professional help for his mental health. "It was a conversation that I had with my now wife," Harry said of the moment he decided to go to therapy. "she saw it straight away, she could tell that I was hurting and that some of the stuff that was out of my control was making me really angry. It would make my blood boil."

The Duke of Sussex then detailed three times in his life that he felt "completely helpless:" riding in a car with mom Princess Diana as paparazzi chased them, flying in a helicopter while serving in Afghanistan and when he knew Meghan was suffering as a result of the same toxic environment he himself had struggled with. "Those are the moments in my life where feeling helpless hurts. It really hurts," he said. "And that's when you think to yourself, 'S---, I've got the privilege, I've got the platform, I've got the influence and even I can't fix this. I can't change this. And when you start getting in your head about it, that's when it starts sort of taking a toll."

That was when he "plucked my head out of the sand, gave it a good shake off" and figured out how he was "going to do this differently? How are you going to make your mom proud? How are you going to use this platform to really affect change and be able to give people that confidence to be able to change their own lives?"

As we all know, Harry was able to find the confidence to change his own life when he stepped down from royal duties and moved his family to the United States. Harry shared his situation has gotten much better since his and Meghan's big move last year.

Prince William and Kate Middleton visit Base25 to mark mental health awareness week.

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week in the U.K., the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited a number of charities that offer support to those in need. One of their stops was at Base25 in Wolverhampton, where they met with staff and clients of the organization, which supports young people who have difficulties in accessing mental health services.

Photo: Getty


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