Jameela Jamil Tells Meghan Markle 'Smear Campaign' Made Her Feel Suicidal

Actress Jameela Jamil recently opened up on an episode of Meghan Markle's Archetypes podcast about how a particularly bad "smear campaign" made her feel "very suicidal."

During the episode titled, The Audacity of the Activist, the pair discussed how there's nothing "wrong with" woke culture, and also skirted around the topic of Prince Andrew, who Jamil had once called "alleged resident pedo Andrew."

Meghan and Jamil discussed their perception in the public eye, with Jamil commenting on how outraged she was for Meghan when she was being attacked by the British media.

Meghan asked Jamil about her own experiences receiving criticism.

"I've been through quite a lot of smear campaigns in the past and when it got too much, one time where it became like really gratuitous and I saw how much the public were enjoying joining in on it, I felt so exhausted, and everything just felt very hopeless and pointless," Jamil said.

"I saw such an ugly side of society that it made me kind of want to tap out," Jamil said. "And so I felt very, very, very suicidal a few years ago because of it. Because it's a lot to take on, it's a lot of voices. I'm OK with being criticized for what I've done wrong, but I'm absolutely not OK with being lied about and having all of my words twisted, and doing interviews for publications and broadsheets, and having those take my words completely out of context and sometimes reconstructs new sentences that have my full paragraphs."

"It kind of just felt so unwinnable, it felt so unsurvivable at times," she added.

Jamil is best known to American audiences for her recent role on the Disney+ Marvel show She-Hulk and she previously had a lead role in the comedy The Good Place. Away from the screen, she's often outspoken on social media and was one of the celebrities who said she'd be leaving Twitter if Elon Musk took over.

Jamil went on to describe the epiphany that she had as to why she and Markle may be the subject of attacks from media outlets.

"The reason they go after powerful women who live very public lives is because they're trying to make an example out of us, right? They're just using us to send out a flare, and a warning to other women who might get the wrong idea that they too, should use their voice and speak up and fight back and say, no, they want to make an example out of us," Jamil said.