Duchess of Sussex reveals she contemplated suicide when pregnant due to ‘stress’ and ‘isolation’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attend the event at the Royal Albert Hall

Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph

The Duchess of Sussex revealed she had suicidal thoughts after joining the Royal family and claimed she was dissuaded from seeking medical attention when she raised her mental state with palace officials. 

The Duchess, 39, said in an extraordinarily candid interview that the “stress and isolation” drove her to contemplate taking her own life while pregnant with son Archie. 

She claimed she told a senior Palace official that she wanted to get treatment for her depression, but was denied because it would “look bad”.

"[Going to a hospital] is what I was asking to do, I was told I couldn’t because it wouldn’t be good for the institution,” the Duchess told Oprah Winfrey during their two-hour interview.

She said she felt so low at one point that she told the Duke of Sussex that she could not be left alone because she was afraid she might harm herself.

She describes a particularly distressing time when she was attending a concert with her husband at the Royal Albert Hall. 

“We had to go to this event after I told Harry I didn’t want to be alive anymore. In the pictures, I see how tightly his knuckles are gripped around mine," she said. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex hold hands as they attend the event at the Royal Albert Hall

Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph

"We are smiling, doing our job. In the Royal Box, when the lights went off, I was just weeping.”

"I was really ashamed to have to say it at the time and ashamed to have to admit it to Harry especially, but I knew that if I didn’t say that I would do it," she told Ms Winfrey. "I just didn’t want to be alive anymore."

She said she then turned to a friend of Diana, the Princess of Wales, the Duke’s mother, for help and advice.

She spoke of the highly restricted life she led after her marriage to the Duke, along with the negative media coverage.

“When I joined the family that was the last time I saw my driver’s license, my keys,” she said. “All that gets handed over. It’s not like you can get an Uber to come to the palace.”

The Duke and Duchess claimed the couple eventually decided to leave the Royal family because they were denied help they had asked for.

The Duke, holding his wife’s hand, said “without a doubt” they would still be a part of the Royal family if they had offered them support.