While the spotlight has been on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, his arrest has prompted questions about what is next for his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.
Ferguson, known by the tabloids as Fergie, married the then prince Andrew in 1986 and was divorced from him 10 years later after an alleged affair with an American financial adviser. It was one of multiple scandals in the 1990s and 2000s involving the former duchess, who was widely considered an embarrassment to the royal family.
Ferguson has stood by Mountbatten-Windsor through waves of allegations produced by his links to Jeffrey Epstein, though she was yet to comment on his arrest on Thursday.
She has previously described him as “amazing” and said they were “the happiest divorced couple in the world”, later rejecting the claims against him and calling his alleged victim Virginia Giuffre a liar.
While Ferguson’s ties to Mountbatten-Windsor have kept her adjacent to the Epstein scandal, it is her own closeness to the convicted sex offender that is threatening to make her persona non grata in the public sphere as more details come to light.
News of the former prince’s arrest came only days after it was revealed that six of Ferguson’s businesses are set to be struck off the register of Companies House, after becoming dormant. It is not clear what each of them did, but one appeared to be a public relations business, while another appeared to be in the retail sector.
Ferguson, whose money problems have been well documented over the years, and who has struggled to be financially independent, exchanged many emails with Epstein, even after he was convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
A string of revelations have uncovered Ferguson’s financial ties – even an alleged dependence – on Epstein. The allegations have also opened up questions about the funding of the lifestyles of her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, now in their 30s, who were pictured going on lavish holidays during their 20s while working relatively low-paid jobs.
Ferguson has been involved in several scandals that appeared to be attempts to cash in on her royal connections, including two tell-all memoirs, in 1996 and 2011, and in 2010 when she was exposed in a News of the World sting operation attempting to sell access to her former husband in return for £500,000. She told Mazher Mahmood, who was undercover as the “Fake Sheikh”, that she would “open any door you want”, promising him he would get his investment back tenfold.
Later apologising for the scandal, Ferguson said it was “true my finances are under stress”.
The Epstein files, the tranche of documents gathered by US authorities in the investigation into the disgraced financier, have shown some of the extent to which she financially depended on the friendship with him, including evidence he wired Ferguson $150,000 (£104,000) in 2001, which she said was for share options she had earned as an “ambassador” for Weight Watchers, which had gone public earlier that year.
She initially claimed to have cut ties with Epstein as soon as she became aware of the allegations against him in 2006. However, emails contained in the US department of justice files showed she maintained her closeness with him.
“Cannot wait to see you,” she wrote in one email in 2009. Another email between Epstein and his assistant showed he paid $14,080 to fly Ferguson and her two daughters, then 19 and 20, to the US for lunch.
Days later she wrote to him: “Thank you Jeffrey for being the brother I have always wished for.”
The following year, in another email, she wrote: “You are a legend.” Later in the same email, she added: “I am at your service. Just marry me.”
Nine months later, Ferguson publicly apologised for her association with him, saying in an interview with the Evening Standard newspaper: “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf.”
But in private, the former duchess emailed Epstein to “humbly apologise” for denouncing him publicly, calling him “a supreme friend to me and my family”.
Later, when the conversation became public, she told the media she had sent that email to him to “assuage Epstein and his threats”.
When the US government released the first tranche of Epstein files in September last year, a number of charities associated with the then duchess cut ties with her, including the Teenage Cancer Trust and the children’s hospice Julia’s House, both of which she was patron.
The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation issued a statement saying the charity was “disturbed” to read her comments, and also dropped her as a patron.
Nothing uncovered in the files has indicated any criminal activity by Ferguson, who appeared to stop using the duchess title when her ex-husband was stripped of his title, though it may be one scandal too many.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theguardian.com ’
