The Duchess of Sussex broke down in tears as she described the impact of receiving death threats in a docuseries.

In an emotional moment during the fifth episode of the Harry and Meghan Netflix series, Meghan said negative media coverage had made people say they wanted to kill her.

The episode focused on the couple’s decision to step back as senior royals, and the influence of the British press over their lives.

Meghan said the media had caused the death threats by creating hate towards her and cried as she described feeling afraid for her life and for the lives of her children.

She said: “It’s my real life - and that’s the piece when you see it and go ‘you’re making people want to kill me’.

“It’s not just a tabloid - you are making me scared. And like that night, to be up and down in the middle of the night, looking down the hallway, like ‘are we safe, are our doors locked?

“I don’t think people fully understand.”

The fifth episode included online research that found that the majority of Twitter abuse directed at Meghan came from only a small number of accounts.

Christopher Bouzy, founder and CEO of Bot Sentinel, said that 70 per cent of the hateful content came from just 83 accounts that had a reach of some 17 million people.

He said that the accounts were co-ordinating with each other to drive the hate.

“These are housewives, these are middle-aged Caucasian women creating just constant attacks,” he said.

Mr Bouzy also claimed that Meghan’s half-sister Samantha was part of a group putting out disinformation about the couple online.

The documentary then shares a statement published in the US publication Newsweek, reading: “According to Samantha Markle’s attorney, Samantha’s Twitter account has never been ‘suspended’ but instead ‘hacked’, resulting in ‘imposter accounts’ made by third parties to defame his client.”

The entire Harry and Meghan series is now available to stream on Netflix.