Meghan's closest pal confesses she faces daily harassment online

Meghan Markle's long-time pal Jessica Mulroney has confessed that she faces daily harassment online, calling out a cruel comment in a since deleted Instagram post.

The Toronto-based fashion stylist has been close with Meghan since before she joined the royal family, and attended the duchess' wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.

But now she's dealing with an issue the royals are all too familiar with – online trolling.

Mulroney, 40, shared a screenshot of a message she received about one of her recent photos, where someone had written: "Pretty! But you look super old in this pic - still beautiful though."

Not one to let the insult go unchallenged, Mulroney used the jab to make an important statement about the nature of social media harassment.

"I get messages every day like this," she captioned the screenshot, which she has since deleted from her page.

"I'm not asking for pity because they don't hurt me, but they hurt so many.

"Social media is not going away. It is a business tool, it can be an incredible place to find strength, but it can be dark."

It's a truth she and close pal Meghan know all too well, the duchess having faced a near constant barrage of online vitriol from the day she was first linked to Prince Harry.

The hatred only intensified when they married and later announced they were expecting their first child.

When Meghan gave birth last year, the comments about her were alarmingly similar to the one Mulroney called out on Instagram.

Trolls criticised the duchess's appearance at her and Harry's photo call with Archie just days after his birth, shaming the new mum for failing to drop the baby weight overnight.

Others pointed out that the looked "tired" and "old" in the photos of her with her newborn.

They seemed to ignore the fact that almost all new parents look tired in the first months, even years, of their children's lives.

Sadly, the hatred directed at Meghan when she joined the royal family appears to have spread outwards, with trolls now attacking those closest to her, like Mulroney.

But the women's friendship means that they're able to support each other through it, and with Meghan now living in Canada again, they're closer than they have been in years.

Mulroney even looked after Archie when Meghan and Harry returned to the UK for a brief engagement in early January, showing just how close the pals are.