The steadily downward spiral of the life of Fergie, aka The Duchess of York, aka ‘call me Sarah,’ continues to inspire a horrified fascination on the part of even the most hardened royal watchers.
Last week she hit a new low, appearing on shopping channel QVC, the first of several appearances in which she will be shilling for a brand of juicers to which she has somehow become attached.
“I ballooned to about 192 pounds,” Sarah said in a heartfelt QVC chat about her weight. “I saw a picture of myself and I needed to change my life, and I went in search of the perfect way to change my life.”
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These specific juicers, she went on, were that miracle solution to all her problems.
In a similar pitch on her website, she appropriates the vocabulary of recovery to sell the juicers.
“I believe that if you really want something badly enough, you can make it happen. It seems like only yesterday when I saw photos of myself and was horrified by my weight.
“I’ve struggled with weight control my whole life and mostly under the glare of the media spotlight. It broke my heart when people called me names. I decided once and for all it was time for a change.”
“A huge part” of her transformation was down to the Fusion Xcelerator, she said, and the gift of having discovered “the many benefits of emulsifying foods with the Fusion Xcelerator.”
All this drivel can be found on her new, appallingly-designed website named, with a tiresome predictability that will surely charm very, very few, “Duchess Discoveries.”
If it wasn’t such a disgraceful betrayal of the ancient title bestowed on her in good faith at her marriage by the Queen (which wiser heads would have stripped her of as part of any divorce settlement) it would actually be quite funny.
But it’s not.
It’s just another embarrassing reminder of the levels to which Fergie—a woman born to vast privilege and married to even more—has stooped in her determination to make a buck.
We should be grateful she is no longer attempting to sell access to her husband to the highest bidder.
So far, according to the new website, the Duchess has apparently discovered just two products—the celebrated, life-changing juicers and “the Perfecter Ultra heated styling brush.”
Happily, both are supplied by mail-order specialist Tristar Products, which has previously marketed products with Rod Stewart’s ex-wife Rachel Hunter and the late comedienne Joan Rivers.
They also oversee Fergie’s website.
I only hope they have gone into partnership with Fergie with their eyes open and watertight legal contracts. In 2006 the company set up to capitalize on her image in the U.S. collapsed with debts of more than £1 million.
She even took money from disgraced Jeffrey Epstein to pay off debts.
Her website majors in its attempts to cast her shill as public service, saying, “One of my missions in life now is to help people fight their weight challenges so they can live longer, healthier and happier lives. Take it from me: you can do it!”
But the truth is, Fergie is selling her title, and getting paid a no-doubt healthy fee for her promotional activities.
It’s a low point in what has been a difficult year for Fergie.
In July, she attended Royal Ascot in one last big push by her ex-husband, who has never, to his credit, given up on his wife, to get her re-accepted by the Royal Family.
It didn’t go well.
The Queen just pursed her lips, but Prince Philip, who Fergie, sources say, accuses of having emotionally terrorized her when she was married to Andrew and of ruling the Royal family with a “rod of iron,” made a conspicuous double take as she curtseyed before him.
Philip has never quite been able to get over the fact that Fergie spent several years after their divorce living with Andrew at his house Royal Lodge—the one he was given by the Queen after his former home, a ghastly McMansion, was bought by a Kazakh billionaire for more than $5m over its asking price.
At least now (to Philip’s undoubted relief) she has moved out of the family home—taking up residence instead in a $20m ski lodge registered in both her and Andrew’s name but bought with his money (she hadn’t “a pot to piss in” as recently as 2010).
Speculation is that this move is because she is getting more serious about her new boyfriend, Manuel Fernandez.
Some are even saying they might marry.
That’s unlikely. If she did remarry, she would automatically lose the ‘Duchess’ title on which every red cent of her income still depends on.
Then we really would have to insist that people called her Sarah.
