On Wednesday night, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry joined an outdoor vigil with a group of about 75 grieving parents who have been helped by the Archewell Parent’s Network, a support group for families they launched in August 2024. The event marked the opening of The Lost Screen Memorial, an art installation of 50 light boxes featuring the photographs of children whose lives were cut short due to harms they encountered online.
“These are families that we’ve been working with for several years,” Meghan told reporters after two hours of speaking to the parents, some of whom were present during their 2023 event for World Mental Health Day. “I think it speaks to the larger global issue that has been present for a few years now, which is no matter how polarized the world is or what people may or may not agree on, one thing that we all agree on, is that our children should be safe. All of our children should be safe.”
When parents began to stream into the space as the sun set on Wednesday, many erupted in tears at the powerful sight of their children’s faces. “This is such a blessing,” said Joanne Bogards, who attended the event in honor of her son Mason. In 2019, he died at age 15 after trying the viral choking challenge. “Anytime you lose someone, just having something tactile to touch, something to say ‘they were here and they were important’ is such a gift.”
The vigil event at the Perch, a rooftop patio at the PENN 2 building adjoining Penn Station, is the beginning of a larger push by the Parents’ Network, to raise awareness of the issues their families have faced. The parents at the night’s event all wrote statements of remembrance for their children that the foundation compiled into a booklet, with the hopes of taking the installation to other cities.
For Harry, getting to know the Parents Network families has helped him understand that a change in our approach to tech and social media is necessary “Life is better off of social media. I say that as a parent, and I say that as someone who’s spoken to many of the kids here tonight who are on social media because they’ve lost a brother or a sister to social media, but clearly not enough is not being done,” he said. “Some of the stories here are truly harrowing. Having done this for the last three years, you’ve been aware of it for the last five years. You think you’ve heard the worst of it until nights like this.”
The event underlined the couple’s commitment to improving online safety for youth through their Archewell Foundation. In a statement, the foundation noted that the installation, which builds on the backdrop of Harry’s September 2024 speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, comes as public progress on the issue has stalled, political leaders have failed to pass legislation, and major social media companies have rolled back safeguards for children on their platform. It also thanked parents for providing these “deeply personal” images.
“These parents are sharing the most painful parts of their lives so that no other family must experience the same heartbreak,” said Archewell’s executive directors James Holt and Shauna Nep. “We hope this memorial inspires all of us—tech leaders, policymakers, and community members alike—to listen to their stories, to learn from them, and most importantly, to act. Online spaces should be safe by design, not an afterthought.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex first got involved with online safety work in 2020, when they participated in the Stop Hate For Profit campaign run by nonprofit group Color of Change. After Archewell’s founding in 2021, the organization has put resources towards projects that address misinformation, media stereotypes, and the harms of social media. At Wednesday’s event, Holt told Vanity Fair that the duke has long been interested in the connections between social media and mental health, but a 2022 meeting with grieving parents organized by the Social Media Victims Law Center inspired Harry and Meghan to make this a larger part of their efforts.
Meghan said that the lessons she has learned through activism have helped to influence her own approach to using social media. “For those who do choose to be online and to be in social media as adults as well, we get to set an example and really put as much good and joy into the world as we can,” she said. “It’s like that old quote: Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. And, I think, in many ways what we see through these parents is the hope and the promise of something better, because every single one of them, and their resilience, is an example.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
-
How Sebastian Stan Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter
-
Inside Elon Musk’s Grievance-Fueled MAGA-morphosis
-
Sinners’ End Credits Explained
-
The Original Girl of the Year
-
Elon Musk’s Breeding Spree Is So Much Wilder Than You Thought
-
Who Is Pete Hegseth’s Wife, Jennifer Rauchet?
-
Roman Reigns’s Quest to Be WWE’s Next Great Crossover Star
-
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked
-
Tom Hanks Is Supportive of His Daughter’s Revealing Memoir About Her Troubled Childhood
-
Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of)
-
From the Archive: Pope Versus Pope: Benedict XVI, Francis, and Their Holy War
The post Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Held Heartbreaking Vigil Honoring 50 Children Who Lost Their Lives appeared first on Vanity Fair.
