Hillary Clinton on Meghan Markle: 'Oh My God, I Want to Hug Her!'

Hillary Clinton on Meghan Markle: 'Oh My God, I Want to Hug Her!'

Meghan Markle has another shoulder to lean on: Hillary Clinton’s.

“Oh my God, I want to hug her!” Clinton told BBC Radio 5 Live host Emma Barnett on Tuesday.

“I feel as a mother I just want to put my arms around her,” added the former First Lady, who has often talked of developing “skin like the hide of rhinoceros” through her decades of taking flak in Washington, D.C.

“I want to tell her to hang in there, don’t let those bad guys get you down. Keep going, do what you think is right,” she continued.

The 2016 Presidential candidate — who is on a publicity tour for The Book of Gutsy Women, co-authored by daughter Chelsea Clinton, 39 — added that Meghan should be given a break because all she’s done is fall in love and look to raise a family.

“She has made her own way in the world,” Clinton told the BBC. “Then she falls in love, and he falls in love with her, and everybody should be celebrating that because it is a true love story. You can just look at them and see that.”

Clinton, 72, added, “You know, it’s not easy. And there are some techniques that can be learned along the way, some humor, some deflection, whatever, which I’m sure she will come to. But it is tough what she is going through. And I think she deserves a lot better.”

Meghan publicly revealed her difficulties with the British press in the recent ITV documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, where she opened up about her struggle to cope with the relentless attacks from the British tabloids.

“I never thought that this would be easy, but I thought it would be fair,” she told ITV News anchor Tom Bradby. “That’s the part that’s really hard to reconcile.”

On the last day of the royal couple’s Africa tour it also emerged that the Duchess of Sussex, 38, is suing The Mail on Sunday for publishing a “private and confidential” letter to her father, Thomas Markle, 75, at a “time of great personal anguish and distress.”

Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images; Tim Rooke/Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage
Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images; Tim Rooke/Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImage

Shortly after the announcement, husband Prince Harry also released an unprecedented statement describing Meghan as a victim of a “ruthless campaign that has escalated over the past year, throughout her pregnancy and while raising our newborn son.”

“I cannot begin to describe how painful it has been,” added the Duke of Sussex, 35, — who is himself suing News UK (owner of The Sun newspaper) and MGN (former owner of The Mirror) over alleged illegal interception of voicemail messages.

Having been in the spotlight for decades, Clinton knows better than most what it’s like to have every aspect of your personal life raked over in public.

In Meghan’s case, the grandmother of three believes the criticism has been driven by a combination of sexism and racism.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt of it,” Clinton told the BBC. “Even if you go back and look at social media from the time the engagement was announced, race was clearly an element in it.

“And to think that some of your [British] — what we would call mainstream media — actually allowed that to be printed in their pages, or amplified, was heartbreaking and wrong.”

The solution, according to Clinton, is for Meghan to give it time and concentrate on what matters most: family.

“It’s one thing to be told what it’ll be like when you step onto the biggest stage with the brightest spotlight, joining the royal family,” said Clinton, “yet it is still really hard to imagine.”

She continued, “It takes some getting used to having your every move scrutinized and analyzed and, frankly, things made up about.

“I really wish her and her husband the very best because they are struggling to have a life of meaning and integrity in their own terms — and that’s hard enough if you’re just walking around in today’s world, but if you’re on that big a platform it’s really difficult.”

Clinton added “You know, people don’t choose who they fall in love with — they fall in love. And she is an amazing young woman. She has an incredible life story. She has stood up for herself.”

As for her own future, Clinton was asked by Barnett if she is “ruling out” a presidential run in 2020 and responded, “I, as I say, never, never, never say never. I will certainly tell you, I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it. But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”