The View’s Meghan McCain on Monday said she can relate to Meghan Markle, noting that while she wasn’t “comparing any of my life experience” with the estranged royal’s, she does “know what it feels like” to be in the spotlight and have negative stories printed in the press.
Markle revealed during her and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night that she had previously contemplated suicide and received no support from the British royal family during her darkest moments. Furthermore, she claimed that palace officials had also expressed concerns over the potential darkness of her baby Archie’s skin.
McCain, during a View discussion on Markle’s explosive revelations, contrasted her own experience as the daughter of late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)—who was the 2008 GOP presidential nominee—as a way to make a larger point about Markle’s treatment by the royals and British tabloid press.
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“One of the other points that I thought was particularly heartbreaking and poignant was her talking about how she wasn’t protected and that the leaks internally from Buckingham Palace that were used to specifically paint her out to be a villain and make her look bad,” McCain stated.
“I want to say something, and I want this to be interpreted the right way: in no way am I comparing any of my life experience to Meghan Markle’s,” she continued. “She experienced something that had egregious racism and happened on a global stage, and she was a complete cultural paradigm shift for the U.K.”
The former Fox News personality then added: “But I do know what it feels like to be on a TV show or a political campaign where people are leaking stories about you with the sole intention to make you look bad, and let me tell you, it’ll do a number on your mental health like you can’t believe.”
McCain went on to say that level of media coverage will “make you feel isolated” and “paranoid,” adding that there’s a “specific way that women are abused in the media” while highlighting Markle and Britney Spears as notable examples.
“I think we need to reassess what is allowed in different places, and what is considered abuse,” the conservative View host declared.
“I can see how they felt like there was no other option for them and their family to put them in a safe space specifically when she was pregnant and she had a new, young child,” McCain concluded. “And I just hope it makes us reassess who we are both globally and in America about how we treat women that are on stages, and what is legally allowed when it comes to falsehoods and leaking.”
