Can royalty help destigmatize mental illness?

Members of the royal family are using their celebrity to change the conversation about emotional trauma and mental illness by discussing their personal grief.

The BBC reported:

William, Duke of Cambridge, told the BBC that he had to “learn to deal with” the loss of a parent.

“The shock is the biggest thing [which] I still feel 20 years later, about my mother,” William said.

“You never get over it, it’s such an unbelievably big moment in your life that it never leaves you. You just learn to deal with it.”

The royals’ campaign #OkToSay is part of the family’s Heads Together organization, which is the culmination of their multifaceted work around mental illness in the UK, from addiction to post-traumatic stress disorder. The campaign features videos of celebrities and everyday citizens having person-to-person conversations about trauma and mental illness in their lives.