The tragic story of Sarah Ferguson’s great-aunt,
Despite all the scandals and scams she’s always managed to bounce back. And here we go again – barely a fortnight after being kicked out of the royal family, the former Duchess of York is trumpeting plans to restore her battered reputation.
She’s done it before. Banished from Balmoral when photos were published of her boyfriend John Bryan sucking her toes, she was publicly shamed – but ended up living in luxury with her ex.
Caught secretly trying to sell access to him for £500,000, she said ‘sorry’ and went on her merry way unscathed.
Only a few weeks ago King Charles himself was pictured gallantly kissing her hand as if she’d never put a foot wrong.
But then up popped her 2011 email to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein where she called him her ‘steadfast, generous, and supreme friend’- leading to her instant dismissal from all of her charities and being dumped by the family to which she’d brought nothing but shame.
Sarah’s been in more hot water than a rugby team after the final whistle, but this time it’s different – and here’s why.
She’s indicated that her way back is through good deeds. Lots of them. Public favour can be hers once again with her planned rebrand as a ‘global empowerment leader’. She’ll write books on ‘confidence and resilience’, go on lecture tours, and speak at women’s leadership and wellness events.
She forgets one thing – the word ‘Epstein’.
Publishers, who’ve halted promoting the stream of books she’s produced over the years, have turned against the former duchess and no major publishing house now wants to be associated with her. The huge cash advances she once commanded have evaporated.
Without a book to sell there’s no TV exposure, which once brought her a useful side-revenue.
Perhaps she might hope to appear again on Oprah, but not much chance of that: in her last outing on the show she confessed she’d been ‘drinking and in the gutter’ to try to explain away her bad behaviour.
And middle America, where she made millions through her brand endorsement of Weight Watchers, and where might have hoped to charm the ladies who lunch on the chicken circuit, is staunchly traditional.
Her business empire, once fattened by income from such books as Budgie The Little Helicopter, is a hopeless mess.
It emerged last weekend that of 11 companies she has either started or been involved in since 2010, one has assets of £124 and another owes a whopping £300,000. The rest are doing nothing.
Another company of which she’s a director, vVoosh, recently collapsed owing large sums of money and its founder, Manuel Fernandez, has reportedly left the country amid allegations of financial misappropriation.
According to The Times, Mr Fernandez – a former British Army soldier – has said these claims will be disproven in a court of law.
Fergie also served on the board of vVoosh’s sister charity that was reportedly set up to ‘relieve poverty’ and improve access to health and education in some of the most ‘disadvantaged areas’ of the world.
A spokesperson for the newspaper told the Charity Commission has ‘initiated the formal removal of the charity from the Register of Charities on the basis that it does not operate’.
This also means that Sarah can’t improve her public profile by joining the boards of other charities, since the Charity Commission – certainly in the short term – is likely to frown on any planned appointment.
So the large sums Fergie earned in the past, and the goodwill created by her association with do-good organisations, have evaporated.
It leaves big question marks hanging over her future. Where will she go, what will she do?
Left unexplained is why, after so many years of living with her ex-husband in Royal Lodge, Fergie is now to live a separate life. No details have yet emerged of the deal she’s struck with her brother-in-law King Charles – whether she’ll be bought a house, granted a lease on a smaller royal property, or just given the money to pay the rent on somewhere else.
We don’t know whether it was her choice to part, or his. Or why.
Her predicament, and the future ahead, eerily echo the fate of Sarah’s great-aunt Sheila, the Viscountess Powerscourt.
Exceptionally gifted and beguiling in her youth, Lady Powerscourt, like Sarah, inhabited a vast and colossally expensive mansion. Like Sarah, she was an impossible spendthrift. Like Sarah she had her mad moments – as when she went shopping in Mayfair in a chauffeur-driven ambulance.
in her day, like her great-niece, she was heralded as a breath of fresh air on the aristocratic scene and – while the going was good – was a diligent wife and mother. But though till alive when Sarah married Prince Andrew in 1986, she was too far gone to attend the celebrations.
But after she and her husband parted, the life of Sheila, Viscountess Powerscourt, descended into a vortex of drink and drugs. A gifted poet she, like Sarah, produced books which people bought. She, like Sarah, drank to excess.
Without a book to sell there’s no TV exposure, which once brought her a useful side-revenue. Perhaps she might hope to appear again on Oprah, but not much chance of that: in her last outing on the show she confessed she’d been ‘drinking and in the gutter’ to try to explain away her attempts to sell access to Andrew for £500,000.
But that’s where the similarities end.
According to her biographer Penny Perrick, Sheila was a ‘serious junkie’ – cocaine, morphine, barbiturates, and anything else she could lay her hands on.
She spent her last days hiding away in a succession of hotels in England, France, Ireland and Switzerland. In order to greet friends who visited her, she would start the day with a refreshing glass of brandy.
The downward spiral of this Irishwoman who, some claim, was as great a poet as WB Yeats, left her life in tatters.
When she left Powerscourt, one of the greatest stately homes in Ireland, the place was emptied and sold. Her husband wandered off penniless into obscurity.
So many similarities, so many sad disappointments. And that is the spectre of failure which now hangs over Sarah Ferguson’s future.
