Since the latest tranche of the Epstein files was released over the weekend, the people who have been most embarrassingly affected by them include former British ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly styled Prince Andrew, Duke of York) and Bill Gates. Yet inevitably, attention has turned to Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, who is emerging spectacularly poorly from the scandal. This is thanks to a series of revelations that portray her as, variously, greedy, an appalling judge of character and someone seemingly willing to figuratively pimp her children, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, while she sought to obtain the money that she craved from Epstein.
Many distasteful details were revealed in the first files released last year. In the autumn, it became apparent that, in 2011, following his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor a few years prior, “Fergie” had sent Epstein a toadying email in which she called him a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.” Apparently responding to the disgraced sex offender’s protestations, she also insisted that she had not called him a pedophile. In October, an image was published by the Sun newspaper in Britain proving that, along with her husband, the former Duke of York, Fergie had hosted Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and the disgraced film director Harvey Weinstein at their Windsor home of Royal Lodge for their daughter Beatrice’s 18th birthday party.
Fergie has been a strange figure in British public life ever since she first married Andrew
The furor was enough for those charities which had (admittedly somewhat unaccountably) chosen to retain her as a patron to drop her. It was further announced that, once her ex-husband was booted out of Royal Lodge, Fergie would no longer be cohabiting with him. This brought an end to a strange domestic association that had seen the former duchess describe their relationship as the “happiest divorced couple in the world.”
Neither of them will be happy now. Andrew’s latest shame has been much publicized – and rightly so, but just as grotesque are stories of how Ferguson gushingly referred to Epstein as “the brother I have always wished for.” Clearly in thrall to the financier’s moneyed charms, she wrote breathlessly that:
In just one week, after your lunch, it seems the energy has lifted. I have never been more touched by a friends [sic] kindness than your compliment to me in front of my girls.
These emails were sent to Epstein in 2009 – a year after his child prostitution conviction – and demonstrate that, for the former duchess, keeping in with the money man was all-important. In July of that year, the correspondence indicates that Ferguson took princesses Beatrice and Eugenie for lunch with Epstein during a trip to Miami. The emails also display a particularly egregious lapse of taste: during one exchange from 2010 she referred to the then 21-year-old Eugenie’s “shagging weekend.” But perhaps these personal revelations – and the presence of the princesses at meetings with the financier – were a quid pro quo for what he offered her in return.
Epstein was a poorly chosen friend. Fergie wrote saccharine missives, apparently revealing that the sex offender had a child with one of the innumerable women he consorted with. But nevertheless, she was sufficiently self-aware to write in 2011 that:
It was sooooo crystal clear to me that you were only friends with me to get to Andrew. And that really hurt me deeeply. More than you will know.
Epstein had severed contact with her earlier that year because he was outraged that she had blunderingly made reference to his sexual proclivities – one outraged email he sent suggested, :I think that Fergie can now say, I am not a pedo.” Predictably, with the removal of Epstein’s patronage came the withdrawal of both influence and much-needed funds.
Fergie has been a strange figure in British public life ever since she first married Andrew in 1986. She has no discernible talents, other than a certain head-down attitude to hard graft. While she previously had a baseline of popularity for her jolly-hockey-sticks silliness and apparent approachability, this has long since been eroded thanks to her not-so-concealed venality and lack of discernment in those who she took money from.
As Fergie reflects on the end of her public career – where even her own charity, Sarah’s Trust announced today that it would close amidst the seismic shame that she now feels – the curse of Epstein has struck again. The former duchess must surely regret writing to him in 2010 that “you are a legend. I really don’t have the words to describe my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness.” Her sign-off – “Xx I am at your service. Just marry me” – was an offer that the sex offender found it surprisingly easy to turn down. How she must wish that she had been similarly steadfast in rejecting his damaging friendship, too.
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