Is Meghan Markle really the most trolled person in the world? | Arwa Mahdawi
IIran may have reopened the Strait of Hormuz, but a global energy crisis has yet to be averted. The war has already damaged electricity infrastructure worth $58 billion. Even in the best case scenario, repairing them could take years.
Luckily, I think I have a way to get us out of this mess. We first invent a sort of large suction device (the technical details will be clarified later). Then we turn it on and suck up all the anger directed at the Duchess of Sussex. Boom, energy crisis resolved.
It is extraordinary that at a time when international human rights law is being flouted by bloodthirsty men, one of the most hated people in the world is a somewhat bland woman. The Duke and Duchess are currently touring Australia, which is predictably rocking some of the tabloids. The Daily Mail seems to have an article every 10 minutes criticizing everything from Meghan’s Australian outfits (“stiff, impractical and, worst of all, horribly aging”) to the guest list for the women’s wellness retreat at which she does a paid meet-and-greet.
This kind of criticism is nothing new for Meghan Markle. Indeed, on Thursday she spoke about the amount of online vitriol she received while speaking to young people affiliated with an Australian mental health organization about the harms of social media. “[E]Every day for 10 years I was bullied and attacked,” the duchess said. “And I was the most trolled person in the world, male or female.”
There, she is not entirely wrong. I’m not a fan of the Sussexes, but the rage that Meghan inspires is beyond reason. Her dim-witted but affable husband is also not universally loved. But, because of good old racism and sexism, she provokes a lot more anger than he does. I mean, Harry wore a Nazi uniform lol when he was young, and he was forgiven for that. Meanwhile, Meghan only has to wear a green dress to a Netflix party where most people were wearing black to make the tabloids seethe with hatred.
This does not mean, however, that the duo is immune from all criticism. There’s obviously a difference between legitimate scrutiny of public figures and obsessive misogynistic outrage around every little thing Meghan does. I myself have criticized the Sussexes many times in the past for their apparent hypocrisy around their royal titles: they want nothing to do with royal life, they constantly tell us, and yet they can’t seem to part with their aristocratic honorifics. At a time when frontline aid workers are being murdered in record numbers, their efforts to present themselves as great philanthropists can also seem somewhat disconnected from reality.
It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or famous, being constantly trolled online can be incredibly damaging. I have enormous sympathy for Meghan in this regard. And I would also kindly urge him to get better PR help. I don’t think you need to be a communications expert to realize that making hyperbolic statements about being the most trolled person in the world — when you’re headlining $3,200 wellness retreats and receiving multimillion-dollar content opportunities — is bound to be hair-raising. Senator Ted Cruz has already seized on the “most trolled” remarks to joke that in reality Meghan, Donald Trump has more trolls.
Although this is not a competition, I think I might give the prize for most brutally trolled person to Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
For the crime of doing his job and speaking out against the genocide in Gaza, Albanese and his family faced relentless threats of death and rape online. The Daily Mail may not publish an article a minute about Albanese’s outfits, but she has been demonized by the Trump administration. Indeed, Trump issued an executive order sanctioning Albanese, meaning that no American person or entity can provide him with “funds, goods or services.”
These sanctions are not just a slight inconvenience; they were described as “civil deaths”. She can’t use a credit card and her Washington apartment has been foreclosed on. A university in Maine even canceled an academic conference at which Albanese was scheduled to make an unpaid appearance over Zoom because she was afraid of sanctions. She’s certainly not going to get paid big speaking fees for women’s wellness retreats. I have a lot of sympathy for Meghan but, sometimes, I think the Duchess of Sussex would benefit from putting her trials and tribulations into perspective.
A new report titled Global Misogyny News Coverage Tracker analyzed 1.14 billion online articles published globally between 2017 and 2025 and found that misogyny is still not taken seriously by the media. The proportion of articles including terms related to misogynistic abuse peaked at 2.2% in 2018, the height of the #MeToo movement, and fell to 1.3% in 2025. “Men’s perspectives lead media coverage and have recently increased, with 1.5 men cited for every woman in articles related to misogyny,” the report noted.
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Quite confusing considering all the King Georges have been dead for quite a while.
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This is a common pattern now, isn’t it? A woman dares to suggest that Trump is not God’s gift to humanity and the thin-skinned president responds by calling her stupid or ugly. This time, Trump’s anger was directed at liberal Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov. Tarlov’s crime was pointing out that the president had terrible approval ratings. At that point, co-host Greg Gutfeld chimed in to say, “[Trump’s] not a politician. You heard it here for the first time, friends, presidents are not politicians.
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Won’t you contribute $5 today to help Gavin Newsom rise to the top of the bestseller charts?
The California governor’s Pac spent $1.5 million buying and distributing thousands of copies of his book to his supporters, accounting for two-thirds of his total print sales. It’s a shame that Democrats all seem more concerned with flogging their books and showing off than fighting for democracy.
The week in Pawtirarchy
If you were taught at school that penguins mate for life, you were taught wrong; many don’t. The penguins at the Kyoto Aquarium in Japan don’t seem to be the monogamous type anyway. The aquarium has a huge flowchart charting the romantic entanglements of its penguin community, updated annually. And judging by the 2026 edition, there’s more drama than Love Island.
Apparently Naka spends all the time at his ex-girlfriend’s nest and a penguin named Pon is in the middle of a complicated love triangle. No judgment on my part, Pon: I’m sure the situation is neither black nor white.
