Meghan Markle seeks help from pal Serena Williams to combat CRUEL trolls
MEGHAN Markle has sought the help of her long-time friend, Serena Williams, to deal with a rise in online abuse.
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The tennis star has reportedly "lent" Kensington Palace her PR team to help Meghan deal with nasty comments on social media, a source has said. The Duchess of Sussex, who is now about six months pregnant, is said to be "extremely close" with Ms Williams – and Meghan even attended one of the tennis star's Wimbledon matches last year. Meghan has faced rising levels of abuse in recent months, following a media frenzy over her rumoured feud with Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.
"Her publicist Kelly put a small team together to create a pitch, and have been in touch with the Palace under an official capacity with a few ideas.
"Meghan's obviously had some horrible trolling, plus people keep speculating about her relationship with Kate so Serena feels she needs the 'big guns' behind her to set the record straight, and shut everything down."
Meghan's team have to manually remove comments on social media, and staff reportedly moderate "hundreds of thousands" of sexist and racist comments aimed at Kate and Meghan.
A source told the Daily Mail Online: "It was pretty vile for a while. There are automated tools which help police the very inappropriate comments getting through, but there is also manual moderation.
"The trouble is there are often thousands of comments."
Staff even have to "block certain words" because some of the abuse has become "quite serious" in recent days.
A source told Hello: “Over the course of last year, with hundreds of thousands of comments, there were two or three that were violent threats.
“It follows a Kate vs Meghan narrative and some of the worst stuff is between Kate fans and Meghan fans.
"Arguments about who looks more appropriate, for example, that turn into personal attacks on other users. It’s creating a supercharged atmosphere and everyone can join in, but what are the consequences of this?"
The Royal Family's social media team have even sought the help of Instagram to deal with a staggering rise in vile abuse, the source has said.
They added: “You can delete and report and block people and the police have options around particular people. It’s something you have to manage because there’s no other way to control it."
Ms Williams, who had her first child Alexis Olympia in 2017, met Meghan around eight years ago and the pair have become close friends ever since.
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The tennis star also attended Meghan's wedding to Prince Harry in May last year with her husband Alexis Ohanian.
In December last year, Ms Williams revealed how "sweet" Meghan frequently checks up on her.
Speaking about her conversations with the Duchess, she told People: "I'm like, 'How are you?' and she’s like, 'No, how are?' and I’m like, 'You’re so sweet, but I’m really asking – how are YOU?'
"I’m like, 'Meghan, stop being so nice you’re the pregnant one, aren’t you supposed to have hormones, why are you so sweet?' But that’s always been her."