The turbulent life of Sarah Ferguson: the former Duchess of York is no stranger to reputation rehab – but will the Epstein scandal be the one from which she never recovers?
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew, pictured at Royal Ascot in June 2019, have been lambasted over their correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein
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In the wake of the story breaking, seven charities of which Sarah Ferguson was either a patron or ambassador chose to sever ties with her, including the Teenage Cancer Trust, Julia’s House, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and the British Heart Foundation. She has also been dropped by Loose Women.
But then again, Ferguson (she stopped using her courtesy title of Duchess of York earlier this month) is hardly a stranger to damning headlines: over the years, she has been caught up in plenty of embarrassing incidents, from that unfortunate toe sucking escapade to the ‘cash for access’ scandal. ‘I have a lot of sympathy for Fergie,’ royal correspondent Bronte Coy told The Sun. ‘She’s quite relatable, almost, in her gaffes over the years because she seems to have this survivor instinct.’ She added, however, that Ferguson had ‘horrendous judgement’ and concluded: ‘I don’t see her reputation recovering [this time].’
Sarah Ferguson’s royal career has been littered with controversies. Her first big scandal came in 1992, amid her separation with Prince Andrew which was announced in March. Six months later, the Daily Mirror published paparazzi photographs of John Bryan, an American financial manager, sucking on her toes as she sunbathed topless in St Tropez – an incident which disgraced her with the rest of the family.
Just three years later, Ferguson was embroiled in another drama when she backed a project launched by bankrupt businessman Clive Garrard to open a nursing home named after her. She withdrew her support a few months before Garrard was jailed for VAT fraud, but the damage was done – the subhead to an article in the Independent about Ferguson at the time read: ‘Idle, extravagant and indulged, she failed to be royal.’
