Sarah Ferguson has been keeping a low profile for weeks after leaving Royal Lodge
The late Queen is understood to have helped Sarah Ferguson financially on previous occasions – as did Jeffrey Epstein. The former Duchess now finds herself effectively without a permanent residence following her departure from Royal Lodge alongside her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
With friends keeping their distance and business ventures becoming scarce, money is said to have become a pressing issue for Fergie. After several weeks out of the public eye, Fergie’s location has apparently come to light.
Reports indicate she recently stayed in the French Alps before travelling onwards to the United Arab Emirates – where her younger daughter Eugenie was seen on Monday, having journeyed to Qatar for an art exhibition as part of her role with gallery Hauser and Wirth.
Despite continuing controversy, Fergie is said to be contemplating a return to Britain. Claims suggest the former Duchess is now actively seeking a fresh PR team as she plans her re-emergence – independently of Andrew – with hopes to remain living in the vicinity of Windsor.
Sources say she has told friends: “I need to get back to work. I need money.”
Fergie’s previous spending habits not only resulted in her carrying substantial debt for years, but appear to have left her without a safety net, reports the Mirror. According to reports, she hopes to purchase a property in the Windsor area – but with her net worth said to stand at approximately £745,000, it seems she would struggle to afford even a terraced house in the town she has inhabited for decades.
Sarah has managed to recover financially in the past through various ventures – from fronting Weight Watchers campaigns and selling products on QVC, to making appearances on Loose Women and writing romantic novels. However, her extravagant spending patterns sit uncomfortably alongside her current situation, distanced from the splendour of royal life with charities severing connections and her children’s book being pulled from shelves.
Previously, Fergie was not reluctant to seek financial assistance. Reports suggest the late Queen came to her aid when the bank Coutts “demanded £500,000 within 14 days”.
The latest batch of Epstein documents reveal urgent appeals for money from the convicted sex offender. Sarah has acknowledged borrowing £15,000 from the paedophile, but recently emerged emails indicate she sought additional amounts – ranging from one request for $50,000 (£37,240) to another for $100,000 (£78,475) to cover “small bills”. The documents also show she enquired about visiting his private Caribbean island.
In 2009, following the collapse of a business enterprise, Sarah apparently wrote to Epstein: “I urgently need 20,000 pounds ($27,521) for rent today. The landlord has threatened to go to the newspapers if I don’t pay. Any brainwaves?”
Reports suggest Epstein may have “bankrolled” her for 15 years, with some calculations suggesting the total figure could reach up to £2 million. The newly released documents also claim to reveal Fergie’s efforts to secure a substantial $1 million endorsement arrangement with a luxury cruise operator.
The Daily Mail reports that she sought the deal with Cunard Line in 2009, mere months after requesting £20,000 from Epstein to cover outstanding rent payments. The correspondence allegedly indicates that Fergie proposed an annual fee of $250,000 per cruise, with four trips scheduled throughout the year. The arrangement appears not to have materialised.
Sarah’s lavish spending habits are also chronicled in Andrew Lownie’s candid 2025 biography about her relationship with Prince Andrew. Lownie, who dedicated four years to investigating the former couple for his work ‘Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York’, alleges the former duchess spent money extravagantly throughout her marriage, with considerable sums spent on household staff, travel, entertainment, and floral arrangements, characterising it as a lifestyle of considerable extravagance. He claims little thought was given to paying the bills.
The biography outlines expenditure including £65,000 for a personal trainer retained on permanent availability, despite using them only twice a year. Fergie is also said to have accumulated a £51,000 bill at upmarket retailer Selfridges, where she would acquire items through the store’s personal shopping service and her former schoolmate, Pandora Delevingne.
According to the publication, Sarah also reportedly spent £14,000 in one month at a London wine retailer. Unsurprisingly, Fergie’s extravagant expenditure eventually caught up with her. Following an unpaid £500 bill, a newsagent reportedly cut off supplies to the Duchess, while a local butcher, dry cleaner, and car rental company are also said to be amongst those she owed money to.
The BP petrol card was allegedly withdrawn after bills went unpaid. The Duchess is said to have run up a staggering £6,500 tab through “an almost daily basis” use of Queen Elizabeth’s privileged postal service. Beyond posting letters and photographs, she would also send expensive presents, such as silver letter openers, cufflinks, and money clips.
A former member of staff told Lownie that “greed and wastefulness that contributed to the duchess’s financial downfall”. They added: “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.”
Lownie also alleges that Fergie “would regularly miss flights that were not refundable”, racking up thousands of pounds in avoidable expenses. One insider also disclosed that Fergie “thought nothing of arriving at an airport with 25 cases and paying between £800 and £4,000 in excess baggage. At least five of those cases were packed with toiletries and make-up. Another would be used solely for clothes hangers.”
Additionally, “personal trainers, hairdressers and pilates instructors were paid hundreds of pounds an hour to wait for her to emerge for the day in the late afternoon. Her butler had to get in at 4.30am to put watercress on ice”.
In a separate revealing book, entitled Sarah’s Story: The Duchess who Defied the Royal House of Windsor, authors Chris Hutchins and Peter Thompson also explored the full scope of her lavish lifestyle. They interviewed staff at the Duchess’s vast 50,000-acre Sunninghill Estate, who described an unusual demand for all of her underwear, including knickers, bras, and tights, to be carefully ironed.
If any of her laundry did not have the scent of her chosen fabric conditioner “she would order everything to be washed again”. According to the Mail, Fergie had a particular nightly routine that involved having “two hot water bottles placed on the side of her king-sized bed”, with staff instructed to ensure the water temperature was just right.
She also insisted on freshly squeezed orange juice every morning, prepared exactly when she sat down for breakfast. The authors said: “She could tell the difference if the juice had been prepared earlier and refused to touch it”.
Sarah and Andrew, who lived at Sunninghill from around 1990 until their separation and eventual divorce in 1996, reportedly spent £300 per week on vegetables from Waitrose. Their freezer was also stocked with an array of ice creams that were seldom consumed. Even their Jack Russell, Bendicks, lived a lavish lifestyle, with one friend recalling how the dog was served “proper dinners, liver or sausages with gravy”.
In 1996, following her divorce from Andrew, Sarah expressed concerns about finances. According to The Times, she said, “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.”