Today marks 27 years since Susan Barrantes, the mother of Sarah Ferguson, died.
Susan’s sudden passing, aged just 61, shocked the Royal Family coming just a little over a year after the death of Princess Diana. And like the Princess of Wales Susan was involved in a car crash that she likely would have survived had she been wearing a seatbelt.
She was driving at over 100 miles per hour when she collided with a truck. The lorry driver – who was wearing his seatbelt – suffered a broken ankle but Susan was killed.
Before her tragic death, Susan had spent the last two decades living in Argentina after marrying her Argentine polo player Héctor Barrantes who she left Sarah’s father – Ronald Ferguson – to be with.
The dramatic move to South America exemplifies Susan’s complex life. This included an alleged affair with Prince Philip – revealed in Andrew Lownie’s bombshell biography about Prince Andrew – Entitled.
On top of this, her relationship with her daughter Fergie was complicated as explored in Lownie’s new book and it left a lasting legacy on the Duchess of York’s life.
Susan, the granddaughter of the 8th Viscount Powerscourt, married Eton educated Polo manager Ronald in 1956. Three years later Sarah was born.
Their marriage was far from a happy one. According to Lownie, Susan was ‘exasperated by her husband’s philandering, which she believed had begun in 1961 and included one of her bridesmaids’ and this is when she allegedly started her affair with Prince Philip.
Sarah Ferguson with her mother Susan Barrantes in the early 1990s. The mother and daughter had a complicated relationship
Fergie with a young Princess Beatrice and Eugenie and her mother at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997
Susan called it quits on her marriage to Ronald in 1972 when she ‘fell in love’ with Hector. Lownie described the separation as having been ‘the end of Sarah’s childhood’.
He continued: ‘Susan leaving the family home had a profound effect on Sarah, who blamed herself for the divorce, took to comfort eating and put on weight.
‘Henceforth, she would later claim, she suffered from insecurity, a feeling of worthlessness, a need to please others, and found it hard to establish stable relationships. She also had mixed feelings about her mother abandoning the family to move to London and then Argentina ostensibly because she did not want to disrupt the children’s education.’
In her own words, Fergie said: ‘It was an obsession. She couldn’t stop herself. I was angry. I wanted to tell her I loved her and missed her desperately, but I couldn’t because I didn’t want her to worry about me.
‘She’d just found her love and I didn’t want to hurt her because she was so happy, and I’d seen her unhappy, so I just ate my emotions. I ate my feelings – which is why I had weight problems from the age of 12.’
Fergie and Susan would not reconnect until the summer of 1976 when, having finished her O-Levels, she travelled to Argentina to learn Spanish and spend time with her mother.
Fergie’s mother and her step-father attended the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York alongside the Royals and the other Fergusons. It was during this time that Susan was reunited with the Duke of Edinburgh 20 years after their affair.
Lownie said: ‘The father of the groom and mother of the bride – lovers twenty years earlier – sat in the third carriage waving to the crowds.
Prince Philip and Susan at Prince Andrew and Fergie’s wedding. The pair allegedly had an affair 20 years earlier
Andrew and Fergie with Susan at the Royal Windsor Horse Show in 1994
Susan at a polo match in Argentina. She moved to the South American nation in 1972 after she ‘fell in love’ with Hector Barrantes
‘Prince Philip and Susan Barrantes, whose former husband was Prince Charles’s polo manager, had been part of the same social circle for years. Now they were together publicly celebrating the marriage of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.’
A few years later, both Fergie and Susan found themselves embroiled in a controversy after £250,000 that the duchess said would be donated to charity was instead used help her mother’s financial difficulties and to renovate Andrew and Fergie’s home.
The money had been paid to Fergie by Hello! for a 48 page spread in the magazine included 70 photos including an image of a young Princess Beatrice in a bath.
Financial problems would continued to plague the rest of Susan’s life.
Lownie wrote: Sarah, John Bryan, now playing a key role in her business affairs, and a detective flew to Argentina to sort out Susan’s financial problems – Hector’s death had left her with huge debts – in what Bryan called “the family disease”.’
Fergie and John would then find themselves at the centre of a very embarrassing royal scandal when the Duchess of York – just months after her separation from Andrew – was photographed in the newspapers in a very compromising position.
Lying on a sunbed in St Tropez, John was pictured kissing and sucking Fergie’s toes.
According to Lownie, Susan claimed it was Buckingham Palace that leaked details of the holiday to the press.
Andrew Lownie’s new book about Andrew and Fergie explores her complex relationship with her mother
Fergie helped her mother pay off her debt using a payment for a photo shoot at Hello!
He wrote: ‘How the story leaked out has been the subject of speculation. Susan Barrantes later claimed that their presence had been disclosed by Buckingham Palace, a view shared by her younger daughter.’
Six years after her daughter’s separation, Susan died in horrific circumstances when she was killed by a truck.
The Daily Mail reported that the tragedy was the ‘Darkest day for Fergie’.
Grief-stricken, she not only had to come to terms with her death but the aforementioned ‘family disease’.
Lownie said: ‘Sarah flew to Argentina, where she found a stack of unpaid bills and the electricity, gas, telephone and hot water turned off .
‘After Hector’s death, Susan had struggled to deal with the debts he had left. As wilful as her daughter, she had ignored advice to sell her mares at a good price, thinking she could do better. The following year she had had to sell them for half the price.’
Fergie would use part of her divorce settlement from Andrew to pay off Susan’s debt.
In the years since her death, Fergie has had ample time to reflect on her relationship with her mother but her conflicting emotions remained.
On a rare occasion when she did speak about her mother, Fergie told broadcaster Gyles Brandreth that she thinks about her mother every day
Fergie and her sister Jane leave a memorial service for their mother in Buenos Aires
‘For public consumption, she professed to be happy for her mother after Susan found love with Hector Barrantes,’ Lownie said.
He added: ‘But, according to Madame Vasso, Sarah was angry with her mother for starting a new life in South America without her.’
Fergie reportedly said: ‘I could never leave my girls … they’re far too precious to me. I really don’t know how she could have gone off like that. I can’t imagine being so far away from my babies and not being able to see them for months on end.’
On a rare occasion when she did speak about her mother, Fergie told broadcaster Gyles Brandreth that she thinks about her mother every day.