Princess Diana and Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson were once among the closest women in the Royal Family, bound by a lifelong friendship that stretched from childhood through marriage, motherhood and royal life.
But according to royal author Andrew Lownie, their relationship ultimately collapsed after the Duchess of York made a claim about Diana in her 1996 autobiography that the Princess of Wales allegedly found deeply hurtful.
Speaking in a Mail UK video interview on Thursday, Lownie, author of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of The House of York, described the pair’s friendship as “very complex”.
“They were childhood friends- it was Diana who actually introduced Sarah Ferguson (to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor) at Ascot in 1985, which led to engagement and marriage the following year,” Lownie said.
“They remained good friends- their children were of similar age, and Diana would come to Sarah every Sunday, and they would moan about the Royal Family.”
The two women- who were actually fourth cousins- shared similar frustrations with royal life and, according to Lownie, both struggled with the restrictions that came with being part of the monarchy.
However, cracks reportedly began to emerge as Diana became increasingly uneasy about Ferguson’s behaviour and the impact it was having on her own reputation.
“There were some concerns that Diana had that Fergie was perhaps too boisterous and was undermining Diana’s own reputation, and she began to distance herself,” he said.
Lownie also claimed Diana encouraged Ferguson to be the first of the pair to formally separate from her husband, believing the move would reveal how the institution treated women who left royal marriages.
“In fact, she kind of played the tough trick on Sarah Ferguson, because she said that they would both divorce at the same time, and that would of course have a much bigger effect than one of them.”
Instead, Lownie alleged Diana stepped back and allowed Ferguson to navigate the fallout alone, so that she would see how the Royal Family would react.
Ferguson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor separated in 1992 before finalising their divorce in 1996- just months before Diana’s divorce from King Charles IIi (then-Prince Charles) was completed.
According to Lownie, the friendship suffered its most significant blow shortly afterwards when Ferguson published her memoir My Story.
In the book, she claimed she caught “a verruca [wart] from borrowing some shoes from Lady Diana”.
“In fact, the reality was that Diana was very concerned that Sarah Ferguson might well be selling stories about her, and that relationship was never repaired, though Sarah Ferguson pretended it had,” Lownie said.
The friendship remained fractured until Diana’s tragic death on August 31, 1997, after a high-speed crash in Paris. She was just 36 years old.
Despite not speaking during the final year of Diana’s life, Ferguson attended her funeral on September 6 alongside her former husband and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
Years later, Ferguson claimed she never fully understood why the friendship ended.
In her 2011 memoir Finding Sarah, she wrote: “I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head, it stayed there for a while.”
Lownie suggested that if Ferguson were ever to publish another memoir, her relationship with Diana would likely be a central focus.
He said any future autobiography could delve further into “the relationship she had with Diana” as well as her connection with the late Queen Elizabeth II, which he described as “very good”.
Ferguson, who has been shunned from public life following the release of the Epstein files, is understood to be keeping a low profile in Europe.
Her ex-husband, who is under investigation by Thames Valley Police under suspicion of misconduct in public office and sex offences, is living in exile on the King’s Sandringham Estate.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.skynews.com.au ’
