The former Duchess of York is said to have enjoyed a life of lavish excess during her time in the royal fold, and even allegedly had to be bailed out by the late Queen more than once
Sarah Ferguson has been told to leave Royal Lodge(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images for IWC)
Sarah Ferguson charmed the British public with her down-to-earth persona, but her life of excess and ‘reckless’ behaviour behind closed doors seems very far from it.
But those heady days must seem very distant now. With her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor stripped of his royal titles and the former couple being forced to evict Royal Lodge, Sarah’s future has never been more uncertain.
Where she will now live, how she will pay for it, and what she will actually do, remains unclear. With her net worth reportedly only coming in at £745,000, she will struggle to afford even a terraced house in nearby Windsor.
READ MORE: Sarah Ferguson had ‘whirlwind affair’ while pregnant – and introduced lover to Beatrice
Sarah had a reputation for excessive and reckless spending(Image: Hulton Archive/GettyImages)
Sarah, who has admitted she is “terrible with money” in the past, has been able to claw herself from bankruptcy before – be it starring in Weight Watchers campaigns and flogging products on QVC to appearing on Loose Women and even writing racy novels.
She is also said to have bailed out by the late Queen on “several occasions” after running up staggering debts, which allegedly included a payment of £500,000 in April 1994 when the bank Coutts “demanded £500,000 within 14 days”.
In his biography, Entitled: The Rose and Fall of the House of York, author Andrew Lownie turned the spotlight on Sarah’s alleged wastefulness and love of excess.
Her extravagant spending included “personal trainers, hairdressers and Pilates instructors who were paid hundreds of pounds an hour to wait for her to emerge for the day in the late afternoon,” according to Lownie, who adds: “Her butler had to get in at 4.30am to put watercress on ice.”
Sarah’s future now looks more uncertain than ever(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The author also claimed the former duchess would waste £65,000 a year just to have a personal trainer on standby – and actually only used their services twice.
A former royal staffer told the author that it was “greed and wastefulness” “contributed to the [former] duchess’s financial downfall”.
They said: “Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It’s a feast that would make Henry VIII proud.
“But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it’s thrown away.”
Sarah with her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Unsurprisingly, Fergie’s lavish spending caught up with her. After a bill of £500 went unpaid, a newsagent reportedly refused to supply the Duchess, while a local butcher, dry cleaning company, and car hire firm, are also listed among her creditors.
Even the BP card used at petrol stations was allegedly confiscated due to unpaid arrears. Sarah amassed a £6,500 bill through using the late Queen’s special mail service on “an almost daily basis”. As well as mailing out letters and photographs, she would send out opulent gifts, including silver letter openers, cufflinks and money clips.
Sarah has also made some unwise decisions when it comes to property(Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Sarah has been vocal about her money struggles in the past. In 1996, when she and Andrew divorced, she complained: “We got divorced because I had to go out to work and Andrew and I believed that it wasn’t right for me to be commercial while I was still in the royal family .”
According to The Times, Sarah had written the first Budgie book while still married, “because there was no money for the second son. Or very little. When people say, ‘You can’t afford to do that,’ I say, who are you? It’s my money. I’ll do as I want.”
Sarah’s money struggles even saw her borrow money from late paedophile billionaire Jeffey Epstein, with fresh claims about her relationship with the disgraced financier attracting huge scrutiny in recent weeks.
She borrowed at least £15,000 from Epstein, with newly surfaced emails allegedly showing that she also asked for further sums: $50,000 (£37,240) to $100,000 (£78,475) from him to help with “small bills” and that she asked to visit his private island in the Caribbean.