It’s hard to imagine Prince Andrew could fall any further from grace, but he’s managed it with the new ‘Chinese spy scandal’. Yet his adoring ex-wife is still standing by him.
It was apparently a great royal Christmas – a huge festive sigh of relief after the stresses of 2024. Princess Catherine was enveloped by adoring family for her annual carol service; King Charles and Princess Anne joyfully braved the chill to greet well-wishers after a morning at church.
But, while King Charles entertained family members for what was excitedly billed the ‘biggest ever’ Sandringham Christmas, one prominent royal was back in the doghouse and very much ‘uninvited’.
Like fairytale outcasts, Prince Andrew sat down to a lonely turkey dinner at Royal Lodge with his loyal companion, ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
Andrew has been lurking in the royal shadows since the car-crash Newsnight TV interview at the end of 2019, when he gave utterly bizarre excuses about his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The Queen stripped her ‘favourite child’ of his HRH title and official duties soon afterwards.
More ‘Andrew trouble’
In early December it was revealed in a High Court hearing that alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who has been banned from the UK, was a ‘close confidante’ of Prince Andrew.
The Chinese businessman was the Chinese arm of Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace initiative. Yang visited Buckingham Palace twice in 2018 for meetings with the late Queen’s second son.
The prince’s biographer Andrew Lownie told The Sun newspaper that he considers the spy scandal to be even ‘more damaging than Epstein’. He explained: “Andrew’s been scrounging money off people in the Middle East and Central Asia. When those stories come out, I think he’s going to be complete toast. The danger is that he’s going to bring the royal family down with him.”
But, whatever mud sticks to Andrew, one person is unflinchingly with him through thick and thin: ex-wife Fergie.
The couple married on 23 July 1986, before divorcing a decade later – but their relationship is unlike any other divorced couple, royal or otherwise.
Nearly 20 years later, they still share a house, Royal Lodge. To impartial observers, they seem to always be together and thoroughly enjoy each other’s company – more so than many married couples!
The duchess gushes about her ex and their relationship: “I think the love I had for him then, is the love I still have for him now. I married the best and greatest gentleman that I know. We are the happy ever after.”
Back in the fold… briefly!
The Sandringham Christmas ban will have hit Fergie particularly hard. Under the new monarch, Christmas 2023 was the first time she’d been invited to Sandringham in three decades. It seemed she was finally back in the fold!
Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond says: “She was so effusive last Christmas and was clearly delighted to be included in the family festivities after so many years in exile.”
And the good feelings were mutual, with Bond also saying: “I think the King has a soft spot for Fergie, especially after their shared cancer experience. She always brings a spot of fun to proceedings. So he will probably be a little sad that she stayed away in 2024, to stand shoulder to shoulder with her ex.”
Fergie was also seen out with King Charles last Easter – part of a handful of royals who accompanied him to church in his first public engagement since his cancer diagnosis. It was a particularly poignant outing – so, was it surprising that Fergie made the exclusive guest list? Not when you consider that she has in the past said: “I adore the King. He still calls me Fergie.”
They have known each other since childhood. Because Fergie has been an integral part of royal life for almost as long as Andrew. Her father was Prince Charles and Prince Andrew’s polo manager; her mother close friends with Camilla. Fergie herself was fourth cousins and close friends with Diana Spencer.
Their mothers were at school together, but Diana and Sarah’s friendship blossomed when they reconnected in 1980, when Diana was 19 and Sarah 21. After Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, she introduced Sarah to Prince Andrew.
An officer and a gentleman
Speaking on US TV in 2010, Sarah said: “My deal was that I was marrying my man, who happened to be a prince and a naval officer. But what I got was not the man. I got the palace and didn’t get him…The courtiers told me I had to go to Buckingham Palace and he had to go to sea. For our marriage, I saw him 40 days a year.”
In 2010 Fergie said in another interview that, if they had their time again, they would stand up to those who pushed them apart. “Both Andrew and I … both of us say now, if we could go back we would definitely play it differently. And maybe we would be together still because we would have said ‘no’ to being separated just after our wedding.”
In the wreckage of Andrew’s life now, Fergie stands by him – a loving and fun mother and grandmother, who has handled two bouts of cancer with grace and aplomb. But it’s easy to forget that in the late 80s and early 90s she was the one causing scandals for the royal family, not Andrew.
Outcast duchess
Photos of Fergie, topless beside a swimming pool, having her toes sucked by her ‘financial advisor’ were published in August 1992.
She was in Balmoral with the royal family at the time, and came down to breakfast of kippers to find her picture plastered on the newspapers all over the dining table. She left hours later.
Legend has it that it was Prince Philip who demanded her out of the family – and never to be in his sight again. Andrew has never commented on it publicly and may well have just forgiven her and carried on. But pressure from The Firm prevailed.
The divorce, settled in May 1996, was quick and she barely put up a fight. She received a modest £3 million settlement (dwarfed by Prince Diana’s £17 million settlement). In later interviews she said she just “felt ashamed” and hadn’t “wanted to annoy anyone.”
Fergie already had a huge overdraft and later told Oprah Winfrey that she was “continually on the verge of bankruptcy.”
Her life since has been marked by a ceaseless quest for funds. From food emulsifiers to children’s books, to ‘the face of WeightWatchers’ to flogging fountain pens, no money-making venture has been too weird.
The final straw came when she was filmed in a sting by Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World newspaper. She offered a ‘fake sheikh’ a chat with Britain’s Trade Ambassador – Prince Andrew – for the sum of £500,000. To be paid to her.
‘Our fairytale’
In 2017 Fergie told an Australian radio show that she and Andrew “never really left each other.” She went on: “I think the love I had for him then, is the love I still have for him now.”
To the Daily Mail in 2018 , she claimed to be “divorced to” Andrew, not divorced from him. “I am so proud of him. I stand by him and always will. The way we are is our fairytale.”
Neither has been seriously linked to another long-term partner since their divorce. Despite the many girlfriends he had before marriage – and other than the alleged Epstein assignations – Andrew has been only vaguely linked to a string of lookalike ‘ex models’, whom he briefly dated in the early 2000s. While Fergie went out with tennis player Thomas Muster for a while.
The final straw?
King Charles has already spent nearly two years trying to get his younger brother out of Royal Lodge, the large home at Windsor that he shares with Fergie.
Charles cut off Andrew’s allowance and no longer pays his security fees. Royal Lodge needs expensive renovations – something that is grounds for eviction if it’s not carried out.
It looked as if Charles had his younger brother on the ropes, until Andrew suddenly ‘found’ the money for the building work.
Now it’s being asked if the cash is coming from his Chinese friends. So far, it’s been deemed a private matter – no details released.
But, if this latest scandal leads to Andrew being ousted from Royal Lodge, Fergie will lose her home.
There is also talk of Andrew relocating to the Middle East to make a new life for himself – perhaps in glitzy Dubai.
Would Sarah go with him? It seems unlikely, given she now has four small grandchildren in England.
In November 2024, before the latest scandal even hit, one Palace insider said: “Andrew is like a lost puppy these days, constantly leaning on Sarah and their daughters for emotional support. He’s become increasingly clingy, reaching out to them every chance he gets, almost as if they’re his only lifeline.”
They continued: “For Sarah, especially, being associated with him is complicated. His reputation as the family’s black sheep makes her connection to him a sensitive issue, and it’s starting to reflect poorly on her as well. She bears the brunt of it. Andrew doesn’t seem aware of the toll his constant needs are taking on her. He’s too wrapped up in himself to think of anyone else.”
Another wedding?
Despite all of this, Fergie has discussed the prospect of remarrying, saying: “I simply say, if it should happen, great. It is not in, nor is it ruled out… The love is still very much there, just in a different form.”
In 2013 she waxed lyrical about her ex-husband, saying: “He’s still my handsome prince; he’ll always be my handsome prince.”
The Daily Mail reported in 2024 that Charles had ‘given Andrew and Fergie’ the go-ahead to remarry.
“Should the Duke and Duchess of York finally cease dithering and confirm their decision to remarry, the King has made it easier for them. A source whispers that Charles has indicated to Andrew and Fergie that he would give his blessing.”
But, surely even Fergie’s loyalty has some limits? Could the latest scandal have scuppered the idea of a wedding marquee on the lawn at Royal Lodge?
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