Tag: Sarah Ferguson

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Prince Andrew Sarah Ferguson

Sarah Ferguson sold her £4.2 million London home, which she bought in 2022

sarah-ferguson-sold-her-4.2-million-london-home,-which-she-bought-in-2022

Now that I’m looking at the timeline, I have a new theory about this story. In August 2022, Sarah Ferguson suddenly and mysteriously purchased a £4.25 million Belgravia townhouse. In 2023, we also heard that Fergie had purchased the property upfront, in a cash sale. It was described as “investment property” rather than a new home for Sarah, who at the time and still to this day lives with her ex-husband at Royal Lodge. You also have to keep in mind that Sarah and Andrew bizarrely purchased a ski chalet in Switzerland several years beforehand, a chalet which they then had to sell earlier in 2022. Queen Elizabeth passed away less than five weeks after Sarah’s Belgravia real estate purchase. So… my new theory is that QEII was funneling money to Andrew and Fergie because she knew she didn’t have much longer. That would make sense, right? It would answer a lot of questions about how Fergie even had the money in the first place. Well, in any case, Sarah has now sold the property.

Sarah Ferguson has sold her £4.2 million London townhouse just three years after purchasing it as an investment property. The Duchess of York had been renting out the two-bedroom property in Belgravia to a private tenant for an estimated £4,000 a week in recent months. Sarah bought the property in June 2022 in her own name, but her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were also listed on Land Registry paperwork.

New documents show a pending application for its sale after a deal was struck over the summer, although it is not clear how much the 65-year-old Duchess has made. The funds to purchase the Georgian property are said to have come from money inherited by Beatrice and Eugenie from the Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Sarah’s spokesman James Henderson said the Duchess ‘wasn’t looking to sell it’ but she ‘was asked by the tenant to buy it and it seemed like a good time to sell’.

Her spokesman told The Times: ‘It’s an investment property for her girls and so the monies will be reinvested accordingly.’

Sarah and her ex-husband Prince Andrew still live together in Windsor at the 30-room Royal Lodge, a 19th-century Grade II-listed mansion with 90 acres of land. The Windsor property has a £400,000-a-year bill needed for its upkeep – and Andrew’s brother King Charles III is said to have been trying to get them to move out. But the funds from a sale of the Belgravia property could be significant enough to help keep Sarah and Andrew in residence at Royal Lodge.

[From The Daily Mail]

“The funds to purchase the Georgian property are said to have come from money inherited by Beatrice and Eugenie from… Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip…” QEII wasn’t dead when Sarah bought the home. And I’m pretty sure Prince Philip just gave his grandchildren their inheritance directly, via his will. You know what I’m saying? There’s no way that Philip would give Beatrice and Eugenie money THROUGH their mother (Philip despised Fergie). So… yeah, it looks like QEII handed Andrew and Fergie millions of pounds in her last few months, probably with the understanding that the money would eventually go to B&E. It would be crazy if Sarah and Andrew just decided to keep the money to save themselves and stay in Royal Lodge though.

There’s a curious update on this story now – apparently, Sarah sold the property at a pretty big loss. From the Royalist Substack: “The [Land Registry] documents confirm that in August, she offloaded the Mayfair property for £3.85 million ($4.72 million), approximately 10 percent less than the £4.25 million ($5.21 million) she paid for it just three years prior.” Hm… so why did she sell? Why did she suddenly need the money so badly in August that she sold the property at such a big loss?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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King Charles III Prince Andrew royals Sarah Ferguson

Prince Andrew & Fergie are no longer allowed at Sandringham for Christmas

prince-andrew-&-fergie-are-no-longer-allowed-at-sandringham-for-christmas

Last week, much was made of Prince William traveling to Balmoral. King Charles went back to Scotland following the Trump state visit mid-month, and William’s aides were briefing the press about the king and his heir spending time together and discussing the big “problems” facing the monarchy. William has been loudly squealing about how Charles needs to completely cut off the Yorks and the Sussexes. Charles has mostly refused. Incidentally, while William wanted everyone to believe that he spent several days in one-on-one consultation with his father, Tom Sykes pointed out that Charles has been staying at Birkhall, and William has been eight miles away, “shooting grouse with friends.” William’s Scottish trip was less about future-planning and more about killing animals. Still, Charles made one concession to William: the Yorks are being told that they can no longer be visible at family events, nor are they welcome at Sandringham for Christmas.

The King has signalled that Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah, Duchess of York, will not be welcome at the royal family’s Christmas celebrations this year. Sources close to Charles indicated he will keep the duke and duchess at arm’s length after it emerged that Sarah maintained ties with Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted paedophile, despite publicly denouncing him in 2011. The King has also made clear that he would prefer the pair, who divorced in 1996, to be “invisible” at future gatherings.

A source close to Charles said: “You can’t sack someone from being your brother. But this year, if the duke and duchess were both to be as honourable [as last year], it would be very much for the best and the family would not be disappointed, not least to avoid the King having to make any more difficult decisions.”

Friends of the duchess said she was “devastated for any embarrassment” caused by the latest revelations and “will explain herself to the wider royal family in due course”.

The Yorks spent last Christmas together at Royal Lodge, the home they still share in Windsor. Their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, did not join them.

Friends of the King have also indicated that he would prefer the Yorks to keep completely out of sight when attending family occasions, by arriving and leaving through discreet entrances where possible. Eyebrows were raised this month when the couple made a public entrance alongside the rest of the royal family at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral at Westminster Cathedral, attended by the King.

A friend said: “The King is not of the mind to banish someone worshipping at church or attending family occasions like a funeral. But he would hope they would find a more discreet way of attending these events. In the Duke of York’s case, he seems to relish the prospect of not being low-key about it.”

After the service, Andrew, 65, was filmed attempting to make light-hearted conversation with the Prince of Wales, 43, who studiously ignored his uncle. Prince William considers his uncle a reputational “risk” and “threat” to the monarchy, and is understood to fully support his father’s firmer stance.

[From The Times]

All of this because William didn’t like that his uncle spoke to him at a family funeral… in front of cameras. Anyway, this has needed to happen for a while, and I hate to admit it, but William has actually been right about the Yorks. They shouldn’t have been visible at all at family events OR state events in recent years. There was no reason for Andrew to be included in Charles’s coronation. There was no reason for Fergie and Andrew to walk with the family to church at Christmas in 2022 and 2023. There was no reason for Andrew to still be invited to the Order of the Garter lunch THIS YEAR. It’s actually smart for the palace to announce this stuff now, because Andrew’s name will continue to pop up in all of the Jeffrey Epstein investigations and Congressional hearings. Plus, Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir is coming out in less than a month. Now Charles can point to this and say “see, I already banned him!”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Prince Andrew Sarah Ferguson

Kay: Prince Andrew should definitely move into Adelaide Cottage

kay:-prince-andrew-should-definitely-move-into-adelaide-cottage

I said this at the start of the week and it’s worth saying again: everyone wants Prince Andrew to be dealt with until it’s time to deal with Andrew. Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s sleazy behavior has been one of the big royal stories this week, with the revelation that Fergie wrote a groveling email to Jeffrey Epstein weeks after she claimed to have cut off contact with him in 2011. Fergie has been dropped by seven British charities over it, and I suspect more charities and businesses will be cutting their ties with her as well. I actually believe that the Yorks are being publicly flogged this week because of their appearance at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral last week. Andrew and Fergie just had to remind everyone that they were still invited to family events, and they could still stand alongside the king and Prince of Wales and no one would bat an eye. Well, Richard Kay got a big briefing from Buckingham Palace on the York situation. What’s really funny is that the basic gist is “well, we’re pretty much going to keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

Charles’s outlook on Andrew: Close friends of the King acknowledge that Charles’s Christian outlook and sense of fair play have taken a substantial knock as revelation after revelation of the sordid Epstein affair heaps yet more embarrassment on an institution that depends so much on public esteem. If anything, his position on Andrew since succeeding his mother as sovereign has become more intractable, not less. As Prince of Wales, he merely had his fraternal bonds – albeit the two are not close – to wrestle with. Now he has to balance those with his duty as monarch in doing the right thing for the country. His critics accuse him of dithering, a lack of grip and an absence of decisiveness. Mischievous voices suggest that Prince William would take a firmer line with his errant uncle. Friends of the King insist this is not the case and that father and son are ‘in lockstep’ over finding a solution to the Andrew and Fergie problem.

Banning Andrew from church: Removing Andrew and his wife from those few public–facing events he is permitted to attend seems the very least he can do. Church services would seem to be the most conspicuous. But an outright ban on the couple attending to their religious devotions might also trigger a backlash. As one of the King’s supporters says: ‘There is something uncomfortable about the head of the Church of England refusing to allow someone to say their prayers, and that’s before you consider that person is the monarch’s own flesh and blood.’

What if Andrew hadn’t gone to the Duchess of Kent’s funeral? ‘Imagine,’ says a courtier, ‘if Prince Andrew had been photographed riding a horse or playing golf on the day the rest of the Royal Family were saying farewell to the Duchess of Kent. Would that be a good look?’

Whether Andrew could be stripped of his ducal title: Opponents caution that Andrew, who has already lost his HRH style along with his military titles, would then simply resort to his birth title of prince. ‘In some eyes a royal prince sounds grander and more important than a mere duke,’ an insider tells me. ‘It’s a case of being careful what you wish for.’

Order of the Garter: There is one shiny bauble that has not been prised from Andrew, his membership of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most distinguished order of chivalry. He has, however, been deprived of publicly displaying his association with the order and does not attend the annual procession of costumed garter knights in Windsor, although he is permitted to join the lunch that follows.

Royal Lodge: Perhaps the most troubling aspect – and greatest source of public disaffection – is Andrew (and Fergie’s) continued occupation of palatial Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park. To many the 30–room mansion symbolises his most obvious vestige of royal privilege and entitlement. As we have reported, the King has tried every available avenue, from cutting off his private funding and withdrawing his security, to trying to persuade him to downsize from the historic house. He has, though, stubbornly refused all offers of alternative accommodation. A figure close to the discussions says: ‘Like any private tenant he has rights and cannot be removed as long as he pays his bills and meets the obligations of ownership.’

Andrew won’t move into Adelaide Cottage either: Since he was last approached on the matter, another property on the Windsor estate has become vacant, Adelaide Cottage, until recently William and Kate’s home. Might it tempt the duke and thus take the pressure off the King? Not according to Andrew’s supporters. ‘He refuses to leave because to do so would be an admission of guilt and downsizing a punishment,’ says one. Part of the problem is that Andrew was insulted by efforts to persuade him to move into Harry and Meghan’s former house, Frogmore Cottage. William’s old home is a more prestigious address. But as one insider wearily put it: ‘It’s up to the duke. And he could save face still by graciously consenting to the move.’

What happens if Andrew is punished too severely: There is, however, one worrying aspect to the affair: if he is pushed too far how might Andrew react? Would he follow his nephew’s lead and write a memoir which could, potentially, be even more devastating for the royals than Prince Harry’s book? And then there is the issue of the duke’s welfare. There has been talk of the impact the controversy has had on him. At the same time courtiers are uneasy about how the Epstein scandal continues to poison attitudes towards the Royal Family across middle England. Even now, some still cling to the hope that Andrew will do the decent thing, withdraw completely from royal life and give up his luxury home and trappings. ‘It is not too late. If he started an animal sanctuary, for instance, he would, in time, begin to earn some public respect,’ says an old friend.

[From The Daily Mail]

When Kay and other Mail columnists write about Prince William, we get the sense that they all know more about the situation than they’re allowed to say, and that William especially has some really dark secrets, secrets which must only be referenced in the most oblique terms. With Andrew, it’s different yet the same. Like, the Yorks’ mess is out in the open, everyone knows all about their moral failings and criminality, and the only unknowns are about the extent of their depraved associations. Yet at the same time, reporters still have to talk about “the thing” which cannot be mentioned – that it’s a balancing act for Charles, because if he completely banishes Andrew, Andrew will sell out Charles and the family to anyone and everyone… and Andrew literally knows where the bodies are buried. That’s “the thing” – that Andrew knows enough to do irreparable harm to the Firm if he’s ever cut adrift. Anyway, all of this to say… my assumptions at the start of the week were dead-on. The Windsors aren’t going to do anything to Andrew and Fergie.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.

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King Charles III Prince Andrew royals Sarah Ferguson

Platell: King Charles made a dire mistake by accepting the scandal-ridden Yorks

platell:-king-charles-made-a-dire-mistake-by-accepting-the-scandal-ridden-yorks

In recent days, I’ve expressed my surprise that there seems to be a somewhat authentic outpouring of scorn for Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson right now. Andrew and Fergie have been making asses out of themselves for decades, most notably around their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Those associations have been well-known for a long time, although the extent of the depravity and degeneracy is still being revealed. Which is where we are now: people have just learned that Sarah lied when she said she cut all ties to Epstein in 2011. Sarah was still in contact with him and sending him sycophantic apology emails. This seems to be some kind of breaking point? This is what did it, really? Not Andrew settling out of court with Virginia Giuffre? Not Andrew’s 2019 BBC interview? Wonders never cease. Well, the British tabloids have been on the warpath and something really interesting is happening. King Charles is getting heavily blamed for not taking care of this York situation years ago. An excerpt from Amanda Platell’s Daily Mail column:

In the decades since she married Prince Andrew in 1986, Fergie has committed many legendary missteps but in first befriending a man such as Epstein and then secretly carrying on their friendship when she knew exactly what sort of monster he was is surely the most egregious of them all and one from which she must not be allowed to recover.

The sad thing is that her actions do not just damage her reputation but the reputation of the institution of the monarchy itself. In indulging this reckless loose cannon and her worthless ex-husband for so many decades, King Charles and the rest of the Royal Family have tacitly accepted their outrageous excesses.

Not so the irascible but perceptive Prince Philip who, according to Andrew Lownie – the author of a brilliantly revealing biography of Prince Andrew that was recently serialised in the Daily Mail – questioned Fergie’s motives for marrying Andrew from the start. In Philip’s view, she was a dim-witted ‘girl on the make’. If only Charles had shown even a smidgen of his father’s insight. Instead of side-lining his greedy, scandal-riven brother Andrew in the wake of Epstein’s conviction on sex charges, the forgiving Charles – all too often too kind for his own good – allowed him and his wife to attend and be photographed at family occasions.

Not only were they welcomed back into the fold to the extent that they were included in the traditional walks to church at Christmas and Easter but, only last week, given front row seats at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent, where they proceeded to embarrass William and others.

What Charles doesn’t get is that every time he is pictured with the Yorks his reputation and that of the monarchy is diminished. They have come to represent everything the general public has come to resent: unearned, inherited privilege coupled with a lust for excess. The King should be less worried about breaching ancient royal protocol by banning Andrew and Fergie from ‘family’ events and more concerned with the feelings of his subjects.

At a time when polls are showing that support for the monarchy – not only among the young but even among devout loyalists – is sinking fast it is vital that he looks to the consequences his behaviour is having on his own credibility. Instead of wringing his hands and indulging his worthless parasite of a brother and his serially disgraced ex-wife, Charles should be focusing on the future of the monarchy. It is no exaggeration to say that, in the medium to long term, the very survival of the Windsors as a royal house could be at risk.

In the circumstances, no right-minded person – even a staunch monarchist like myself – will tolerate anything less than the complete removal of the Yorks from public life in perpetuity. Fergie may have been uncharitably christened the ‘Duchess of Pork’ due to her ongoing problems with her weight but now the expression relates to her legendary greed and taste for opulent living. From the very beginning she has been a blue-blood leech sucking the Royal Family dry. Now she is dragging them into a scandal which, in this woke world, I fear the monarchy may never fully recover from – unless action is taken now. The King must rue the day, three months ago, when he gave the duchess a very public display of endorsement at Ascot’s royal enclosure, almost genuflecting as he kissed the Duchess of York’s hand. It’s a picture that may well come back to haunt him.

[From The Daily Mail]

That part about Charles kissing Fergie’s hand is true, I looked up the photo and I’m including it below. Charles also said some nice stuff about Fergie during her cancer battle as well, and I think he genuinely has affection for her. As for the rest of this… I actually have a theory. My theory is that the lack of reaction from Charles and the palace is because they believed everything would blow over, like it’s blown over a million times before in the past 20 years. QEII did the most to protect Andrew in particular, because she believed that she could show the public that they could “forgive” him like she forgave him. It didn’t work out that way, and let’s face it, QEII largely set the stage for what’s happening now. Charles obviously gets some of the blame, but royalists are loath to point out that QEII did the most to protect the Yorks from any consequences of their actions.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.

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Sarah Ferguson

Seven charities dropped Sarah Ferguson after her Epstein email was revealed

seven-charities-dropped-sarah-ferguson-after-her-epstein-email-was-revealed

Since her divorce, the Duchess of York will basically go to any event that pays her. She turns up at some of the most random-ass red carpets and events I’ve ever seen, still, to this day. Besides those paid gigs, Sarah is still the patron of many charities, and to her credit, she’s always shown up for those charities too. She’s shown up more often than many “working royals,” let’s say that. Well, no more. Over the weekend, the Mail revealed that Sarah Ferguson sent an apology email to Jeffrey Epstein in 2011. The backstory: in 2010, Epstein gave Sarah a lot of money, she gladly accepted the money, then people found out she accepted the huge sum from a convicted pedophile, so she issued a public apology about it. All of that has been well-known for years. What people didn’t know was that following her public apology, Epstein threatened to sue her, so she sent him a sugary apology email, pledging her friendship to him forever. In the 48 hours after the Mail published the email, seven charities dropped Fergie as their patron.

Seven charities have dropped the Duchess of York as a patron or ambassador after an email from 2011 emerged in which she called sex offender Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme friend” and seemed to apologise for her public criticism of him.

Julia’s House, a children’s hospice, was the first to remove Sarah Ferguson, Prince Andrew’s ex-wife, saying it was “inappropriate” for her to continue in the role. The Teenage Cancer Trust, Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, Children’s Literacy Charity, National Foundation for Retired Service Animals and Prevent Breast Cancer also announced they had dropped the duchess as patron. The British Heart Foundation said she would no longer be its ambassador.

A spokesperson for the duchess said she was not commenting on the charities’ decisions.

It comes after the Mail on Sunday and Sun newspapers published a 2011 email from the duchess to Epstein, which appears to have been sent after she had publicly claimed to have broken off contact with him. In the email, she appeared to privately apologise for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

That seemed to contradict her public denunciation of Epstein in an interview earlier that year, in which she had said her involvement with him had been a “gigantic error of judgement” and that: “What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.”

A spokesperson for the duchess said her subsequent email to Epstein, describing him as a friend, had been sent because she was trying to counter a threat from him to sue her for defamation – and that she still really regretted any association with him.

[From BBC]

As many have pointed out, it feels like Fergie is being targeted. I’m not saying that what she did was no biggie, but you have to keep in mind, we’ve barely scratched the surface of both Fergie and Andrew’s connections with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Literally writing “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me” in black-and-white to a convicted pedophile will take down most public figures, I just didn’t think it would happen to Fergie before it happened to Prince Andrew or Donald Trump. But yeah, this has the feel of Buckingham Palace tossing Fergie right under the bus. Is this… King Charles’s housecleaning? Settling old scores, future-planning, taking care of some final business?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Jeffrey Epstein royals Sarah Ferguson

Sarah Ferguson sent Jeffrey Epstein an email apology full of flattery in 2011

For decades, we’ve known that Sarah Ferguson (the Duchess of York) also had some kind of relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. While Epstein was trafficking girls to Fergie’s ex-husband Prince Andrew, Fergie was getting money from Epstein. The official story is that Epstein gave Fergie a one-time five-figure sum. Many believe that Epstein loaned Fergie a much larger sum and it was all covered up, because once people found out about the five-figure sum, they freaked out. Did I mention that Epstein gave/loaned Fergie this money after he went to prison the first time? After he was already a convicted p3do? When the British press found out about the money, Fergie had to issue a public statement apologizing for her bad decision. As it turns out, right after her public statement, she sent a private letter/email to Epstein where she apologized to him for the statement and told him she basically did it to save her post-royal career.

A bombshell email obtained by The Mail on Sunday has revealed how the Duchess of York cynically lied when she pledged to cut ties with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Just weeks after publicly disowning the vile billionaire, Sarah Ferguson wrote him a gushing private message calling him a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’ – and admitting she only distanced herself from him to save her own reputation. She sent the grovelling message ‘from the truth of my heart’, less than two months after telling journalists: ‘I will never have anything to do with [Epstein] again.’

The extraordinary email will send shock waves through the Royal Family and will fuel calls for King Charles and Prince William to completely ostracise the disgraced Yorks. It comes just days after the Duke and Duchess launched an ill-judged return to the public limelight with a prominent, and widely criticised, appearance at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent.

Last night a spokesman for the Duchess said that Epstein had threatened to sue her for defamation after her Evening Standard interview and she had been advised to try and ‘assuage’ him. She stands by her public condemnation of the paedophile, the spokesman added.

The emails between the billionaire and the Duchess were exchanged after he was released from a Florida jail in July 2009, having served 13 months of an 18 month sentence for soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14. Just under 18 months later, in December 2010, Epstein agreed to pay £15,000 owed in unpaid wages and other bills to Sarah’s former personal assistant, Johnny O’Sullivan. The deal, orchestrated by Prince Andrew, allowed a wider restructuring of the Duchess’s debts, which were approaching £5million. Details of Epstein’s generous assistance were uncovered by the media in March 2011, causing embarrassment to the Royal Family.

On March 7, 2011, in the interview with Mr Greig splashed on the front page of the Evening Standard, the duchess made a ‘heartfelt apology’ for accepting Epstein’s cash. In comments that made headlines around the world, she said: ‘I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me. I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever I can, I will repay the money and have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.’ Castigating her former friend, she added: ‘What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.’ And, in apparent exasperation, she pledged to cut off all contact with him. ‘I will never have anything to do with him again. I deeply regret it. How many more times do you want me to underline that?’

But weeks later Sarah was privately disavowing her comments in the desperate email to Epstein revealed today. Writing to her benefactor on April 26, she said: ‘You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family. As you know, I did not, absolutely not, say the “P word” [paedophile] about you but understand it was reported that I did. However, I am apologising to you today for not replying to your email or reaching out to you when the tabloids were so horrendous.’

She angrily condemned the media, who she said ‘used me to hurt you beyond realms’, and complained that the controversy over her links to him ‘was the worst nightmare for me’. Despite emphatically telling the Evening Standard that she would never have anything to do with Epstein again, she apologised for not contacting him sooner, saying: ‘It is unlike me’. Justifying her lack of contact, she said: ‘I was advised, in no uncertain terms, to have nothing to do with you and to not speak or email you and if I did I would cause more problems to you, the Duke and myself. I was broken and lost. I shut down and ran away. So please understand, as I do about you, that I was broken and not the strong person you know and I got completely obliterated and I saw all my children’s work disappearing. I didn’t want to hurt Andrew one more time.’

She told Epstein ‘we are, and have both been, in the firing line’ adding that they had ‘both [been] blamed for stuff we have not done.’

And, in perhaps the most jaw-dropping passage, she suggested that she had been told to give the interview as part of a strategy to protect her writing career and charity work. ‘I was instructed to act with the utmost speed if I would have any chance of holding on to my career as a children’s book author and a children’s philanthropist.’

Last night, a spokesman for the Duchess said: ‘The Duchess spoke of her regret about her association with Epstein many years ago, and as they have always been, her first thoughts are with his victims. Like many people, she was taken in by his lies. As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him, she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with paedophilia. She does not resile from anything she said then. This email was sent in the context of advice the Duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I mean, I actually understand her rationale, but arguing “don’t you get it, I was just trying to save myself and keep Epstein from suing me” is a hell of an argument. Somewhat interestingly, Fergie never paid Epstein back, to my knowledge. Not for the widely-reported smaller sum and not for the larger sum which everyone believes Epstein gave her or loaned her. She really took that monster’s money, publicly called him a p3do, then privately told him “don’t worry, I still consider you a friend, besties 4 eva.” Insane. There’s a lot of commentary about what this means and whether King Charles will completely cut his ties with the Yorks, blah blah blah. I’ll have some of that in another post.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.








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Prince Philip Sarah Ferguson

Prince Philip apparently had an affair with Sarah Ferguson’s mother in the 1960s?

prince-philip-apparently-had-an-affair-with-sarah-ferguson’s-mother-in-the-1960s?

The late Prince Philip was a serial adulterer. That has been known for decades, that he cheated on Queen Elizabeth II throughout their marriage. When Philip “retired” to Wood Farm in his last five years, he basically spent that time with long-time companion/friend/mistress Penny Knatchbull, who had been his special friend since the 1990s. But in his younger days, Philip was pretty wild. I’ve never heard this particular story though, which came out in Andrew Lownie’s book about Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. Lownie claimed that back in the day (the 1950s and ‘60s??), Philip had a lengthy affair with Sarah’s mother, Susan Barrantes. The Daily Mail’s Richard Kay tried to fact-check the story and he made it worse:

Of all the jaw-dropping claims in Andrew Lownie’s meticulously researched book about Prince Andrew – from his insatiable sexual appetite to his wife’s financial recklessness – it is one of the most provocative. It forms the very opening of the whole biography, in fact, as follows: ‘The father of the groom and mother of the bride – lovers 20 years earlier – sat in the third carriage waving to the crowds…’ Nowhere in this arresting description of the Duke and Duchess of York’s wedding day in 1986 does Lownie seek refuge in words such as ‘alleged’, ‘rumoured’ or even ‘reported’.

The two figures sharing the horse-drawn landau that July day were, of course, Prince Philip and Sarah Ferguson’s twice-married mother, Mrs Susan Barrantes. That they were lovers is stated as fact, plain and simple. The affair began, so Lownie asserts, after Susie, as she was known, became ‘exasperated’ by the philandering of her first husband Major Ronald Ferguson, father of the duchess.

Perhaps it is convenient that the protagonists in this menage-a-trois are dead and cannot defend their names or reputations. Yet all this week, in broadcast and media appearances, the author has neither swerved from his view nor retracted a word. Challenged in interviews, indeed, Lownie doubled down. Appearing on GB News, former Tory minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg loftily dismissed the claim as ‘just gossip’, but the author responded that the trusted and knowledgeable source behind it was a member of his own family. Lownie’s wife, Angela, a similar age to Fergie, had grown up near Ascot, close to the Fergusons.

All rather compelling – but does it make the story of a liaison between Fergie’s mother and her royal father-in-law true? Ron Ferguson had his suspicions. In The Galloping Major, his 1994 memoir in which he was scathing about the royals and their treatment of his daughter, he noted: ‘I always suspected that Prince Philip had an eye for Susie. Certainly, they remain friends to this day.’ Behind this seemingly casual remark lies at least a hint of bitterness.

For a few heady years in the 1960s, Ferguson, a career soldier who joined the Life Guards as a trooper before going to Sandhurst, and his well-born wife – Susie was granddaughter of the 8th Viscount Powerscourt – were part of a lively social circle around the young Queen Elizabeth and her husband. Ever since he married into the Royal Family, Philip had been dogged by well-informed speculation about his love life. His reaction was always the same: apparent indifference punctuated by the occasional angry denial. Yet the stories persisted – for he was incapable of hiding his interest in women, not least in the willowy Susan, nee Wright.

This week I learned from another source about the prince’s rumoured admiration for the first Mrs Ferguson. It came from distinguished academic and writer David Rogers, a former parliamentary adviser to Tory grandee Lord Whitelaw. Rogers told me that the rumour was common knowledge among well-connected members of the louche Thursday Club, a men-only establishment where bon viveurs included raffish figures such as actors James Robertson Justice and Peter Ustinov, American harmonica player Larry Adler, the yet-to-be-unmasked Soviet spy Kim Philby, and of course, Prince Philip. Rogers, too, was a member.

Rogers recalls hearing the gossip about Philip and Mrs Barrantes. ‘It was around 1965,’ he told me. ‘As I recall, it was some time between the two general elections of 1964 and 1966.’ What was the gossip? ‘That there was something going on between Prince Philip and Ferguson’s wife. It was talked about openly.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I looked up photos of Susan Barrantes and let’s just say… yeah, I believe it. She looks like his type – tall, slender, willowy, with a patrician bearing. She looks similar to Penny Knatchbull, honestly. As for when the affair possibly started…they’re being squirrelly about THAT because they don’t want to suggest that Philip is Sarah Ferguson’s secret father, or that Sarah and Andrew are half-siblings. Sarah was born in 1959. Philip’s friends are saying that IF the affair happened, it was in the 1960s, several years after Sarah was born. Which sort of makes it worse when you think about how much Philip despised Sarah – like, he was possibly around Sarah when she was just a little girl.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.