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Sarah Ferguson has said that her husband Prince Andrew felt “lonely” after the death of his parents, the queen, and Prince Philip.
Speaking on her new podcast Tea Talks, Ferguson, who is herself recovering from surgery for breast cancer, made the remarks while she was discussing caring for and exercising her seven dogs, which include the late queen’s corgis Sandy and Muick.
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She said that she and Andrew had taken the dogs to a woodland walk “made specially for the queen” the day before the podcast was recorded, which was apparently this week.
“It was very moving actually,” she said.
“At one stage, we both, Andrew and I, just sat quietly under some really beautiful trees and I asked him if he was alright without his mum and dad.”
“He said it’s lonely. He thinks about it a lot,” she said, adding that people process grief in different ways and her husband was “human like everybody else.”
Fergie said, “Grief is a really interesting thing—it comes up in tidal waves, then it goes away again, and you cry and you’re sad, and then you just keep going and the next day it’s ok, or the next minute.”
Her co-host suggested that the fact of Andrew’s parents both dying in quick succession must have left him even more bereft, and Fergie said she believed it had left even more of a “gap” in his life.
She did not, however, mention the other gap in his life, which is that he doesn’t have a job anymore, having been fired from the ranks of the working royal family after he was accused of raping a teenager to whom he subsequently paid a multi-million dollar settlement.
“It was actually very wonderful to have a moment to really remember because this time last year the queen would have been going to Balmoral and we would have walked exactly where we walked yesterday together, and then the queen would have said, ‘See you up in Scotland,’” Fergie said.
Ferguson recently had a mastectomy to treat breast cancer and said she is recovering well.
She still lives with her ex-husband in separate wings of Royal Lodge. Attempts by King Charles to get the couple to vacate the house have been put on hold while she convalesces.
