The father of Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg said his daughter “fell ill” years before she participated in the school strike that launched her to international fame.
Speaking with BBC’s Today program, Svante Thunberg talked about the years of isolation and depression that young Greta Thunberg endured.
“She stopped talking. She stopped eating,” Svante Thunberg, 50, told Today. “She stopped going to school. She was basically home for a year. She didn’t eat for three months.”
Greta Thunberg, 16, has spent 2019 traveling on a worldwide tour promoting her views on the dangers of climate change. She has barbed with President Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in recent months.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said criticism of Thunberg was fair game after some admonished the president for escalating a war of words with the activist.
“She’s not ordinary now because she’s special, and she’s very famous and all these things,” said Svante Thunberg. “But to me, she’s now an ordinary child. She can do all the things like other people can.”
