Sarah Ferguson’s relationship with the Royal Family has all but imploded in recent months, evicted from her Berkshire home and stripped of her titles alongside ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. King Charles‘s attempt to quell speculation about the Firm’s links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who enjoyed a friendship and long-term correspondence with both Andrew and Sarah, is far from the first sign of a rift between the former Duchess of York and her royal in-laws, however. Prince William, reportedly a driving force behind Andrew’s ostracisation, appears to have been distancing himself from Sarah for over a decade, dating all the way back to his wedding in 2011, from which she was noticeably absent.
The 66-year-old, who separated from Andrew in 1996, was forced to watch on as her husband and their two daughters Eugenie and Beatrice attended the lavish celebrations, and even travelled abroad in an attempt to dodge its country-wide fanfare. She told Oprah Winfrey later that year: “I was not invited, and I chose to go and be in Thailand in a place called Camelia and… the jungle embraced me.”
She added that the Prince and Princess of Wales’ decision to omit her from the guest list left her feeling “totally worthless” but admitted it was “quite right they didn’t invite me” after she was caught offering an undercover reporter access to her husband for £500,000 in a scandalous sting operation.
“It was so difficult. I wanted to be there with my girls, and to be getting them dressed and to go as a family,” she continued. “And also, it was so hard because the last bride up that aisle was me.”
The former duchess said Andrew comforted her by reminding her how “perfect” their 1986 wedding day was, in a nod to the pair’s unconventional dynamic which saw them live together at Royal Lodge from 2008 until their eviction this year.
“I felt that I ostracised myself by my behaviour, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes,” Sarah said during the bombshell TV interview. “I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day, thinking and regretting, ‘Why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes?'”
But she took solace in comparing her absence from William and Kate’s big day to that of the future king’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in 1997.
“I really love the feeling that sort of Diana and I both weren’t there,” she told Oprah. “But I’m here to say how proud she would have been and Kate looked utterly beautiful.”
Both Sarah and Andrew have been excluded from the guest list of Christmas Day at Sandringham in Norfolk this month, after also celebrating elsewhere last year.
Sarah attended the Christmas service with Andrew, their children and royal relatives for the first time in decades in 2023, in what was reported at the time as an effort from Charles to mend fences – something he has now evidently been counselled against.
