Fergie’s warped life behind closed doors – begging for cash and Epstein friendship
Prince Andrew and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson are back under the microscope and have given up the use of their royal titles, after becoming embroiled in renewed scrutiny as their friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
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Sarah Ferguson has been caught up in a scandal involving an email to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein(Image: Getty)
For years, there has been public outcry about the friendship of Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in the US for her crimes.
Things have recently come to a boiling point, with Andrew announcing he would no longer use his royal title and honours, though he still legally holds them for now, after a “weary” King Charles had a 10-minute phone call laying down the law with his errant younger brother.
Sarah has been a public figure since marrying Andrew, and she has endured many ups and downs during her decades in the spotlight, as well as a hot and cold relationship with both the press and public.
For some, her charming affability and sense of humour have made her a likeable member of the Royal Family, even after her scandalous divorce from Andrew, but not everyone has always been so convinced, including some who had relationships with her away from the spotlight.
The new reports about the relationship Sarah had with Epstein come after an explosive biography was published during the summer by Andrew Lownie – Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York – filled with salacious claims about the former husband and wife.
Amid the ongoing fallout, Sarah is said to be on “the edge of a nervous breakdown” with her sister Jane reportedly flying from Australia to offer Andrew’s ex some support.
From gargantuan debts, the one royal who detested Sarah, the celebrity she flew over 1,000 miles to try and date, all the way to claims that Sarah “celebrated” Epstein’s release from prison – the Mirror takes a look at Sarah’s life behind closed doors.
Flew 1,500 miles to date sport star
A year after her official split from Prince Andrew, Fergie is alleged in Lownie’s book to have jumped on a plane and travelled 1,500 miles in an attempt to get a date with a “gorgeous” golfer Tiger Woods.
Sarah is claimed to have told Piers Morgan she was “in love”, to which Morgan allegedly replied: Who’s the lucky guy?”
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Sarah is said to have set her sights on Tiger Woods(Image: Getty Images)
Sarah reportedly said she planned to “follow him around the course for a bit and see how I get on”, to which Morgan joked: “Poor old Tiger isn’t going to know what’s hit him.”
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It doesn’t seem things became romantic between the pair, but they were repeatedly photographed together over the years at golf events, and Sarah later called him “an amazing friend”.
Threw bucket of ice over ex-boyfriend
Sarah has admitted that as a younger woman, she could become excessively “needy” in romantic relationships, and struggled to see the “boundary” between herself and her partner, sometimes “suffocating” them.
“I was trying too hard. I understood no limits, no boundary between the me and the you. I would inundate people with my neediness – suffocate them, really. No reasonable man could stand it, and so he would run away, or go chase after someone with more self-respect.
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Sarah Ferguson admitted being needy in relationships(Image: TOPSTAR / BACKGRID)
“I set myself up for rejection and got permanently hurt and stunted,” she later said.
In Lownie’s book, it is claimed that on one occasion, when a boyfriend who regularly insulted her appearance, had a “roving eye”, and did not treat her well, began flirting with an attractive woman, Sarah “dumped a bucket of iced water over his head”.
‘Head turned by royal marriage’ and split personality
Much of Sarah’s initial appeal to both the public and inside the royal circle was her grounded, down-to-earth nature, which provided something of a foil to the usually poised nature of the royals.
However, her new position as Duchess is alleged by some who knew her to have “turned her head”.
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Sarah said to have ‘had head turned’ by royal position(Image: Getty Images)
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“Marriage brought her attention and a list of privileges that she could never have dreamed of. It was quite to turn her head,” a housekeeper at Highgrove was quoted by Lownie as saying.
One interviewer said of Fergie that there was a deep contrast in her personality, as if you were almost dealing with two different people when speaking with her.
“One is ‘no longer a people pleaser’, who snaps at you and regards you coldly. But when she calms down, another Fergie emerges – the skittish, smiling, English eccentric we all love … The thin line between the two is unnerving.”
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Another journalist for the Daily Mail said that her personality was of a contradictory nature, both “warm and engaging,” but then suddenly “cold and imperious” and demanded “one-way loyalty”, adding: “Should anyone dare to question her behaviour, she is liable to turn nasty”.
Party reputation and love of ‘freebies’
The marriage between Andrew and Sarah was claimed to have quickly lost some of its lustre, with Sarah admitting that how much her new husband was away carrying out his Naval duties bore part of the blame.
She had something of a reputation for being in a party-loving set before her marriage, and before too long she is alleged to have returned to her old habits.
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Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson(Image: Getty )
After one trip to New York, where she was put up in a $3,000 a night suite, “partying continued long into the night ‘to such an extent that the sponsors faced a charge of several thousand dollars for extra catering and room service.”
One who scrutinised a break- down of the wine bill reportedly commented: “Well, she certainly knows her vintages.”
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Sarah is also claimed to have taken advantage of any “freebies” that came her way as a member of the Royal Family, including lavish holidays.
Massive debts
On more than one occasion, it is claimed, Fergie had to be bailed out by the late Queen after racking up enormous debts.
One of these saw Coutts banks demand a payment of £500,000 in 14 days, which saw the former monarch allegedly forced to step in.
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Much of this financial debt came from Sarah’s love of a life of “opulent excess” and in 1994, she is said to have owed a total of £3.4 million.
Paul Burrell said of Fergie that she was “like a little girl brought into a sweet shop and told she could have anything she wanted. And she did, she had everything, not just one thing, she had the lot. Absolutely. Abused everything and had everything she could possibly, gorged herself. I saw it”.
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Sarah is said to have had a love of ‘opulence’ and ‘freebies’
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Another former member of Sarah’s household staff said, “Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It’s a feast that would make Henry VIII proud.
“But often there is just her and her girls Bea and Eugenie and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night and the next day it’s thrown away.”
She also is said to have been “big-hearted, full of energy, enthusiastic, exuberant, boisterous and generous,” perhaps even to a fault, with Lownie claiming, “At one point she had 450 people on a birthday gift list.”
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So it wasn’t all just a love of luxury. She is said to have gone above and beyond for those around her, including renting a home for her personal trainer and his family after his wife left him.
Epstein ‘visit’
In resurfaced emails seen by the Daily Mail, Jeffrey Epstein revealed that Fergie was so desperate to cosy up to him that “she was the first to celebrate” his release from jail in 2009 and that she travelled to the US “with her two daughters in tow” at the time.
Princess Beatrice would have been 20 and Princess Eugenie 19 – the same age as many of Epstein’s victims. Epstein was released in July 2009 after serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence in a Palm Beach County jail after pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor.
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The email, written by Epstein in 2011, came after Sarah had disavowed him in an interview with the Evening Standard, during which she said she “abhors paedophilia” and that she would have “nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again”.
Shortly afterward, she wrote to him apologising for her comments, saying he had been “a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”
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The sex offender died in 2019(Image: Florida Department of Law Enforc)
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Her aide has claimed Epstein had threatened her after the interview was published, saying, “people don’t understand how terrible Epstein was” and that the “chilling” phone call had seen him threaten to “destroy” Sarah.
The convicted sex offender told his legal team Sarah “should affirmatively state that she was misquoted”.
He is alleged to have continued, “[Sarah] took apartments in New York. She was the first to celebrate my release with her two daughters in tow. She visited me with [a] policeman sitting at my front desk. She has asked for help with her charities.”
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Sources close to Sarah claim she has no recollection of visiting him on this occasion, and neither do Eugenie and Beatrice.
Sarah has admitted, and apologised for, taking money from Epstein, but new reports claim the sum was higher than initially believed.
Emails allegedly indicate that Fergie begged to borrow $50,000 (£37,240) to $100,000 (£78,475) from Epstein to help with “small bills” and that she also asked to visit his private island in the Caribbean.
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Multiple affairs
It is well known that both Andrew and Fergie had multiple affairs during their marriage, which had become fraught behind closed doors.
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John Bryan and Fergie
Sarah was spotted on holiday with American John Bryan in 1992, where the pair were photographed canoodling, with Bryan licking and kissing her toes. The fallout from the scandal was swift, and Fergie officially separated from her husband, though they remained on good terms and are still close friends today.
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For his part, Andrew is said to have had many affairs of his own behind Fergie’s back, including a “dozen” in the first year of his marriage.
Staff ‘struggled to cope’
Some of her staff are said to have found her difficult to work with over the years. She is alleged in Lownie’s book to veer between “confiding far too much when she treated them as friends and compensating far too angrily when she remembered they were servants”.
Many of her staff were made redundant when Andrew and the late Queen are said to have stepped in to try and manage Sarah’s financial crises.
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A young Beatrice with her mum Sarah Ferguson in 1989(Image: Getty Images)
Another former staffer was quoted by The Sun as saying, “‘Fergie can make you feel a million dollars one minute then trample you into the dirt the next. Even if you have your own family to look after, they take second place when it comes to the Duchess.”
They added, “It is all about power, dominance and the manipulation of people. She knows she does it and that is literally how she gets her kicks.
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“When you are in favour there is nothing she won’t do for you – send you presents on your birthday, flowers, say nice things about you. But suddenly it will all change.”
Royal enemy
One member of the Royal Family in particular is said to have held a serious grudge against Sarah after her salacious toe-sucking scandal 1992 – Prince Philip.
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Sarah with Prince Philip in the early 1990s(Image: Tim Graham/Getty Images)
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Prince Philip, who was said to run the show behind closed doors in the Royal Family, refused point-blank to ever be in her presence again, but is said to have been quite fond of her initially when she and Andrew got together.
Philip was also claimed by Lownie to be a major blockage to Andrew ever remarrying Sarah, which he may have considered had his father not been so dead against it.
