After more than a year out of sight, Sarah Ferguson has resurfaced in London, meeting photographers head-on. The 67-year-old former Duchess of York attended a memorial service for Paddy McNally, the motor-racing magnate she dated before her royal marriage.
© Getty ImagesShe attended the funeral alongside her daughters, Princess Beatrice, 38, and Princess Eugenie, 36. The photos were published by The Daily Mail, marking the first sight of Ferguson on British soil in well over a year.
The setting was St Paul’s Church in Knightsbridge, the moneyed residential and shopping quarter just west of central London, steps from Harrods. Dressed in blue lace, Ferguson looked upbeat on arrival and gazed directly into the photographers' lens.
The York sisters were accompanied by their husbands, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi and Jack Brooksbank, and the congregation included other noteworthy members of the extended royal family, including Princess Anne’s son Peter Phillips.
© Getty ImagesFor Sarah, this goodbye was a long time coming. McNally, her boyfriend in the early 1980s, died in July at 88. When he was laid to rest in August, Sarah stayed away, and her eldest daughter went on her behalf. This time, she showed up herself.
The pictures say as much about her daughters as they do about her. Beatrice and Eugenie were perfectly comfortable being photographed with their mother, a reminder of how close the three remain.
Back to the UK
© Getty ImagesThursday’s outing confirms that Ferguson is back in Britain for good, after months overseas spent regrouping from a spectacular collapse. In the span of a year, she lost her titles and her place at Royal Lodge, the Windsor estate home she’d long shared with her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Charity after charity cut ties with her as a patron, and her children’s publishing deals evaporated.
Sightings since then have been very rare. Before Thursday, the most recent photo of her dated back to April, at a resort tucked into the Austrian Alps. The one before that was a fleeting glimpse in December, from the back seat of a car, when she went to the christening of Athena, Beatrice’s younger daughter.
To find her last true public appearance, you have to go back to September 2025, when she stood alongside Andrew and the wider royal family at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral at Westminster Cathedral. It would be her final outing before the storm. Within days, emails laying bare her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein became public, and her reputation never recovered.
Andrew, meanwhile, remains caught up in his own fight, still convinced he can clear his name.
© Tom Stoddart Archive
