Sarah Ferguson appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show twice, once after her divorce, and again after one of the biggest scandals of her public life, when she fell for a News of the World sting and was secretly filmed by an undercover reporter accepting money in exchange for offering access to Prince Andrew, who at the time held an important position as the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, giving him access to business leaders and foreign governments.
If anything defines Sarah Ferguson, it is her resilience. The past few months have marked an unprecedented downturn in her public life. The woman who once surprisingly sidestepped the scandals of her past now faces a far darker landscape.
© IPA/IPA/Sipa USAAt 66, according to British media, she is reportedly living in a state of “panic” after losing practically everything. The royal mansion she shared with her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, her job as a children’s author, her duchess title, and, presumably, the contacts and invitations that kept her tied to the British royal family and high society.
Against this backdrop, the idea is growing stronger that she may be negotiating an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, something she has already done twice before and something the British royal family fears.
© IPA/IPA/Sipa USAA column in The Times mentioned the royals' concern about Ferguson going on American TV, while at the opposite end of the UK media spectrum, The Sun claims that Sarah Ferguson already has a "six-figure offer" on the table, as the palace fears the former duchess may become “rebellious.”
© IPA/IPA/Sipa USAThe Sun adds that her team has received offers from American networks and that there are also open conversations with British outlets. The theory gaining most traction is that she may choose Oprah Winfrey, something entirely plausible, considering that when it comes to criticizing the system underpinning the State, it is always better to do it from outside, just as the Sussexes did. And Ferguson knows this well, having given Oprah two headline-making interviews in the past.
In 1996, shortly after her divorce from Prince Andrew, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and spoke about how life within the royal family “was not a fairy tale," something Diana, Princess of Wales, had just said on the BBC in her own famous “interview of the century,” now thirty years old.
© IPA/IPA/Sipa USALater, in 2010, after the scandal in which she was filmed accepting money in exchange for access to Prince Andrew, then the UK’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, she returned to Oprah’s show to express remorse, acknowledge financial problems, and attribute her behavior primarily to her lack of self-esteem.
On 16 September, Andrew and Sarah attended the royal funeral of the Duchess of Kent. It was their last public appearance before this final downfall triggered by the leak of emails between them and Jeffrey Epstein.
© Max Mumby/IndigoAccording to The Sun, palace advisers are anxious about what Ferguson might reveal and fear that, now that she is outside the royal family, she may become “rebellious,” but there is little they can do to "stop her.”
That fear could explain why she was allowed, for years, to live as though she were still a Windsor, despite having been divorced from Prince Andrew for nearly two decades. In other words, if King Charles III ultimately refuses to provide her with a residence, she will have to secure one on her own.
© Getty ImagesIt is worth noting that this particular negotiation is not fully resolved, or it is simply unknown where Sarah Ferguson will live after Buckingham Palace announced on 30 October that the King had initiated proceedings to evict his brother and former sister-in-law from Royal Lodge.
The former Duchess of York will have to leave Royal Lodge, where she lived with her ex, and some say she may take refuge in Portugal, where her daughter Eugenie owns an exquisite property.
Whether this is a tactic to pressure the royal family or simply a means of earning money, the truth is that the leaked emails have left her with nothing.
© Getty Images for Global CitizenAn interview would be a double-edged sword. The tabloid notes that this is her moment and that she also has the right to tell her story. Until now, she has shielded herself behind the argument that she acted out of fear of Epstein, even when she accepted his money despite the investigations and convictions surrounding him, but it is one thing to state this through a lawyer, and quite another to sit before a camera and sustain it.
This summer, Sarah Ferguson was just another guest at the Royal Ascot races. Now everything has changed for the Yorks. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor tried to halt his own downfall by giving a televised interview, the one he granted in November 2019 at Buckingham Palace to the BBC’s Newsnight, which became a scandal and the beginning of his public collapse.
© Max Mumby/IndigoThe interview with Emily Maitlis did the opposite of what he hoped. It turned into a communications disaster that further destroyed his reputation. His explanations and his total lack of empathy for Epstein’s victims were received with disbelief and ridicule, ultimately speeding up his withdrawal from public life.
At that time, Queen Elizabeth II was still alive to rescue her favorite son and allow him to keep most of his privileges, while privately, Sarah Ferguson closed ranks around him, insisting that as a man, husband, and father, he was wonderful.
© Mark CuthbertFast forward to February 2024, the Duke and Duchess of York attended a memorial service for King Constantine of Greece, an official event organized by Queen Camilla and held at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. A sign that, after Prince Andrew’s settlement with Virginia Giuffre, they had managed to reappear on the Windsors’ family agenda.
While Queen Elizabeth II protected Andrew and tolerated Ferguson’s closeness, King Charles III seems determined to cut off any uncomfortable ties, and Prince William even more so. If she ultimately sits in front of the cameras, her account could become the next explosive chapter in the Windsor saga, and it would be another problem for the institution that sheltered her for decades.
