Prince Andrew has just had, whisper it, his best week in ages.
First his legal fight against Virginia Giuffre Roberts was given a boost by news that the presiding judge wants to publish Giuffre’s 2009 settlement with Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew’s attorneys argue its terms will release him from legal jeopardy.
Then he received some rare public, personal support. True, it came from the one woman who appears to be his only remaining public defender, his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. But the very oddness of their ongoing post-divorce connection, especially the fact that they still live together in the same house—although, a source tells The Daily Beast, they live in “separate wings” of Royal Lodge and do not share a bedroom—makes it a defense which is more likely to actually cut through and reach the public.
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Fergie’s comments came as she was spending much of this week on a tour of Italian TV studios promoting her new ghost-written romantic novel, Her Heart For a Compass.
Given the inevitable questions she would face about her ex-husband, it’s arguable that Ferguson (even if she has never been known to turn down an opportunity to promote her wares) was rather brave to agree to several live TV interviews.
On one show, Porta a Porta, when she was specifically asked about the Epstein scandal, she said, very simply: “I completely stand by Andrew 100 per cent.”
She told interviewer Bruno Vespa: “I believe that the love I have for him, and he has for me, it is very different to what normal people have, and the way normal people act, but we do have great respect and love for each other.”
She made similar remarks in an interview with interview with the French magazine Madame Figaro, saying: “I loved him and I still love him today, I will stay by his side, because I believe in him. He is a good man.”
While the British press have been quick to trash Fergie for daring to stick up for Andrew, it’s notable that she was applauded multiple times by studio audiences on Italian TV.
It’s easy to throw stones at Andrew and Fergie. He is a creep. She tried to sell access to her husband to an undercover reporter for £500,000.
But it’s hard sometimes to avoid the sense that the thing that really offends their critics is that they appear to live together quite happily despite being divorced.
Is it unusual? Yes. Is it the most unhappy of Windsor family units? Definitely not.
In an interview on another Italian show, Today is Another Day, footage of their 1986 wedding was played. It was notable that Sarah’s youthful face was an expression of simple, uncomplicated joy.
Her wedding day was also discussed in her chat with Vespa, whom she told, when asked about the happiest day of her life, that it was the day she married “the best man in the world.”
Certainly, Fergie divides opinion, but most people who actually have dealings with her have remarkably few bad words about her. One acquaintance, for example, told The Daily Beast that she has a “good heart” and said she sent them a hand written thank you card and a photo after they attended a fundraising event she was helping with.
When the subject of Prince Andrew came up, Sarah told host Serena Bortone: “People talk to me about the marriage, and ask how long it was, but the thing is we are still together,” said Fergie unequivocally. “We are still living in the same house, we are really good parents to our girls and we are really good grandparents to our grandchildren. We have done it our way. Marriage is marriage but we are at our happiest [in this arrangement]… we always say we are divorced to each other.”
Although there has long been speculation that the couple might remarry, a source close to the couple told The Daily Beast: “I can tell you there are no plans, by either party, to remarry,” however the source was careful to add, “She has always been unstinting in her support of the Duke, as he has her.”
A friend of their children concurred, telling The Daily Beast: “I don’t think they would actually remarry, even if Andrew’s lawsuits get solved, just because it would draw so much attention to them. I think there is a sense of why bother? They are both quite content with the way things are now.”
Fergie seemed to hint that she would not be diving back into matrimony in her interview with Today is Another Day saying: “People say to me, ‘You lost the fairy-tale,’ but I say, ‘Maybe it’s a different fairy-tale.’ I still have a fairy-tale, it just has a different ending.”
It was also fascinating to hear Fergie talk about the abuse she was publicly dealt in the media as a result of her weight gain.
“I just got bigger,” she said. “I didn’t have an eating disorder as such, I just got bigger and the more I ate, the more the newspapers said that I was the Duchess of Pork.”
The interview was being translated live for the host and the studio audience. The host paused for a moment at this remark looking confused.
“Pork?” Fergie clarified, “Piggy?” she gave a little grunt and the female panel, comprehension dawning, looked utterly horrified. “The thing is that you start believing it, and you go down into the darkness,” Fergie said.
Of course, we have heard much of this before, on Oprah, in the newspapers, in magazines. That does not change the fact that the way she was treated by the British media was horrific. And yet no-one says sorry to Sarah, barely a fraction of the sympathy at the revulsion at the abuse heaped on Meghan transfers to her.
Anne Boleyn might beg to differ with Sarah’s claim to Madame Figaro interviewer that she was “maybe the most persecuted woman in the history of the royal family,” but one knows what she means.
Another friend of Ferguson’s told The Daily Beast: “They are definitely the most functional divorced couple of anyone I know,” and it was notable in that context to hear Sarah’s calm, matter of fact response when asked if she would spend Christmas with Andrew.
She said: “Once you divorce a family, you don’t really expect to be invited back in, so I’m quite happy. I give my children as a gift to Her Majesty because Her Majesty deserves my children and I’m used to it. For 26 years I’ve not spent Christmas with my children, and I say to myself, well, you can’t have it both ways, you can’t divorce the royal family and still go to Christmas with them.”
It was remarkably grown up.
Sarah Ferguson was fed through the mill that crushed Diana and survived. She has made mistakes, cashed in on her royal connections and done multiple incredibly stupid things.
Of course, there is self-interest at play in her ongoing defense of Andrew. One source said, “She lives rent free,” and another opined on the happy publicity for her book that her support for Andrew is delivering.
But the truth is that by far the most convenient option would have been for Fergie to drop Andrew like a hot iron, like everyone else has.
The fact that she has not done so does not necessarily make her a good person, but it does make her a loyal one.
