Sarah, Duchess of York: "Cash for Access" - May 2010


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.
The press can and will nose out any story to have a scoop before anyone else and even blow the headlines out of realism to get folks to buy the paper and read the latest "scandal". If you're in the public eye though you learn that early on.

No one can learn to live with being criticised all the time with no positive comments. The uncaring comments that have been passed about Sarah on here and elsewhere since 1986 would make anyone who was born into the public life despair but a woman who came to it in adult life would never truly cope.
 
Sarah, to my knowledge has not had a place to call her own since they divorced and the place she lived in the UK burned down. I am sure someone can provide a name and date, but since that time she hasn't "lived" with Andrew but moreso stayed with him when she was in the UK.

The Queen Mother has been dead since what 2002? I am thinking she had at least stayed with Andrew for the last three to four years, so that 2006....and I am trying to give her a cushion of a year or two.

Thanks Zonk. :)
 
It's not new that Sarah has great difficulty managing her finances and living within her means. She had the lucrative Weight Watchers contract and odd jobs such as promoting Wedgewood and, credit to her, paid off her previous debts. But she's now back in the same situation she found herself in years ago but with greatly reduced commercial credibility.

So here's my rhetorical question...
Why hadn't someone close to her (friends, advisers, ex-husband, children, accountant, business associates) insisted she get professional assistance in managing her financial affairs? If she doesn't even know how much she owes at this stage of the game (as stated in the Oprah interview) then there's no helping her.

Surely someone has to step in and save Sarah from herself. It's not a crime being unable to manage money but it seems incredible to me that no-one who cared about her had taken firm action to ensure the situation didn't get completely out of hand as it obviously has now.
 
If she didn't buy a house why would it be paid to her? That would just be throwing money at her to squander. Her daughters were well provided for so there would have been no expense to her there.


The money for the house was never paid as no house was ever bought.
 
I had a hard time understanding the first half of the inteview not so much her words but her whole manner seems off to me.The things she was saying made so little sense half of it sounded like a little kid trying to explain things the other part with her talking in the third person was so strange.I think she needs guidence which clearly no one gives her.
I do feel bad for her but she needs a new direction.
 
I had a hard time understanding the first half of the inteview not so much her words but her whole manner seems off to me.The things she was saying made so little sense half of it sounded like a little kid trying to explain things the other part with her talking in the third person was so strange.I think she needs guidence which clearly no one gives her.
I do feel bad for her but she needs a new direction.

I do think Oprah realized that too and that's one reason why the terms "downward spiral" "spiritually and morally bankrupt" and "addiction" were thrown at Sarah. They were terms to get Sarah to focus on herself and talk about herself and her actions. At the time of the interview I really don't think the severity of this whole mess had hit Sarah yet and perhaps it won't for a while.

Shock is the first reaction (was it wine or orange juice? I can't remember) then comes denial ("she looks exhausted") then anger and self mortification ("dark" Sarah, childhood and dad and mum and losing a best friend). What will seep in eventually I think if she works at it will be acceptance and hopefully build from that.

One thing is clear to me too. There is no way that Sarah could or would ever say anything negative about Andrew or the BRF. She did say that she'd not be in that chair unless it was OK for her to do so in Andrew's eyes and how great the Boss is. :) As much as the style Duchess of York is important to her, so is the family that style belongs to. That is one part of the interview that came across crystal clear to me. Her face even seemed to go soft at the time she talked about them.
 
When I first watched the NoTW video, Sarah sounded so confident when she said she'd talked to Andrew, that at first I really thought she must have spoken to him about the money. Maybe not told him the details, but given him some hint about what she was doing.

But since both Buckingham Palace and Sarah have denied it, and Sarah told a totally different story on Oprah about not knowing where her head was (which is contradicted by her assertive behaviour in the video) I have to conclude that Sarah is telling different stories to different audiences.

Yes, I do know that if you look at her past history she may not always have been completely honest. Maybe I should be cynical all the time, but I tend to give grown adults the benefit of the doubt when it comes to whether they're telling the truth. I did think Sarah was a more or less honest person, but I'm not sure anymore.

I'm now wondering if no one helped Sarah out of her financial problems because she never admitted them. I remember when the stories of her financial problems first came out, some paper asked Andrew if Sarah was in as much trouble as it sounded, and he said, "Not if you look at the full facts" and "I've been vaguely aware that she's been in the papers." Considering they live in the same house, it sounded like an understatement. But maybe it wasn't and Andrew really didn't have much of a clue about Sarah's financial problems. And if Andrew didn't know, who would know? She must have someone taking care of her banking and investments, but it seems like Sarah was in complete denial about her debts. And I'm sure greed got the better of everyone she was doing business with, until they found themselves in debt and went to collect what she owed them.

This has to have been going on for a long time and I think NoTW was right when they said Sarah has made other similarly shady deals. I think that's partly why she seemed incoherent on Oprah. She says she doesn't recognize that person in the tabloid video, but I think that's just because that's not who she presents herself (and believes herself) to be, and this is the first time she's had to face that side of herself and admit it was wrong. Sarah is an adult, she knew what she was doing. It sounds like on Oprah she was trying to present her behaviour on the video as some kind of dark side she hadn't seen before, and now she just needs to deal with the demons, etc, figure out why she's doing this...typical self-help talk. But I think Sarah knew that side of herself was there all along and, unfortunately, she didn't see what she was doing as particularly wrong until she got caught. Everything was all about keeping up the lifestyle, staving off the creditors and maintaining the facade of being "the Duchess of York."
 
Another observation just popped into my head here.

When Oprah was interviewing Sarah, although she was billed as Duchess of York, what I saw was Oprah addressing concerns to Sarah Ferguson.

Still bugs me though.. as an ex wife of Andrew, why is she still referred to as Ferguson? This is really a pet peeve of mine. Anyone know how she signed the marriage register and if on divorce she reverted to her maiden name?
 
It shouldn´t bug you about a surname, royal families really don´t have a surname, they have lots of given names but they belong to the "House of Whatever"
Really the only actual surname she has ever had is Ferguson. Having Duchess of York after her name is fine but after this fiasco she would be much better to forget this and try to go back to her former way of living even though I believe the man she lived with before her marriage was a very wealthy man.
As to someone taking her in hand and giving her advice, if you read Starkie´s book (he was there and saw it happen over and over again) she just agrees and then doesn´t take the advice or goes off at a tangent.
I woud like to be sorry for her but I am not. I am digusted with her, and another thing that bugs me, but you will have to read the Starke book to find out what I am referring to, is the necklace with the letters GB she always wore, as it was the pet name her father gave her.
She has gone through more money in a short time than most people will ever see in their lifetimes.
The Queen offered to buy her a house after the divorce, she didn´t buy it? Why? The house that burnt was because she left a candle burning when she went out, but it was rented.
 
With regard to the surname, I know it is purely by custom that a woman changes her surname to that of her husband's on marriage, but it's not a legal obligation to do so and it's not like you're changing your name by deed-pole which allows you to legally give up your previous name. Therefore, I personally believe that a woman's surname given at brith is always available for use without question - especially as it's on her birth certificate!
On divorce, I think woman have the choice to revert back to their birth name or keep their married name. My mother decided to keep her married name after divorce simply because she had used it for more years than she did her birth name and had got used to it!
 
^I don't have a problem with her keeping her divorced woman style. That's really the only identity she has and in term of professional opportunities, she needs it.
What I have a problem with is her acting as if this style still confers her royal status. Like when she said to Oprah: 'I was trying to be The Duchess of York'.
Darling, that ship has long sailed.

Anyway, something Sarah might use if it ever goes to a parliamentary enquiry (for background, this concern John's Terry dad, who was exposed as a drug dealer as part of a NoTW sting, but was only given a slap on the wrist for an offense that usually carries long jail sentences):

News of the World story on John Terry's dad was entrapment, says judge
"It is a very, very clear case of entrapment solely to create a newspaper story," [Judge] Mitchell told the court, as he spared Terry from a prison sentence.

"The facts in this case are highly unusual. In fact the offence was actually created by the actions of the newspaper sending a journalist to set you up. It is clearly an entrapment case and the only reason they did this was to create a story because of your connections to a well known footballer," the judge added.
Mods: I am not trying to go OT here, I just though this very similar case could benefit the discussion.
 
Wasn't this thing (sting) supposedly set up because of rumors already circulating that Sarah has done this before? What I'd like to know is why NoTW started this in the first place.

Living in the US, when I divorced I had to specifically put into the agreement that I wished to return to my maiden name. This perhaps is the reason why I asked about surnames. :bang:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is such a sad story. She acted very disgraceful not only towards the royal family but also - and even more - towards her daughters and her ex-husband. How can she look into her daugthers eyes now after all this? I think the girls love her very much. How can she disregard their feelings? Unbelievable. There is no excuse for such a bad behaviour, neither drunkeness or money problems. She really should consider some of treatment for her own sake so that she can cope with her financial situation. She no longer is a royal - she should not act like one.
 
The Queen offered to buy her a house after the divorce, she didn´t buy it? Why? The house that burnt was because she left a candle burning when she went out, but it was rented.

The Queen didn't offer to buy Sarah a house as part of the divorce settlement. The Queen offered to buy a house for her granddaughters, it was to be put in Beatrice and Eugenie's names. A house was selected, not by Sarah but by the Queen's advisors as well as the police in that it had to be secure. Sarah declined the house because she would be the one who had to pay for the upkeep and she couldn't afford to. The house was large and would need staff to run it.

The house that suffered smoke damage to the toilet was the house that Sarah rented near Windsor. She moved permanently into Royal Lodge while repairs were being done, the lease ran out she never moved back in. From when Andrew first moved into Royal Lodge Sarah had a suite of rooms there so she could stay overnight with her daughters, her rented houses were not secure enough according to the PPOs.

Sarah also rents an apartment in New York, I think that's what she meant by the fact that she couldn't pay her rent. Contrary to how it appears in the media, she does spend a lot of her time in the US, more than what she spends in the UK, so it's not that she lives fulltime at the Royal Lodge.

What her living arrangements will be from now on is anybody's guest. Strangely absent is 'the other man' who is normally seen around Sarah, the Norwegian Findus heir.
 
...She no longer is a royal...
If you saw the interview with Oprah, you'd have seen that going to commercials it was flashed with Oprah's signature and the name Sarah Ferguson and underneath Duchess of York. I'm the oddball of 1 out of 10,000 in the US that knows she is styled as a Duchess of York and not THE Duchess of York. Joe the plumber has no clue and associates the title with the monarchy rather than know that she once was THE Duchess. As long as both Andrew and Sarah are close.. that is how they're going to see her. The problem I think is that as Sarah said in the interview she was keeping up with a courtesy title and still trying in her own way to live up to it and failed. I do believe her love for Andrew and their daughters is very sincere and as she said "unconditionally"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
No one can learn to live with being criticised all the time with no positive comments. The uncaring comments that have been passed about Sarah on here and elsewhere since 1986 would make anyone who was born into the public life despair but a woman who came to it in adult life would never truly cope.
There hasn't been this much bad publicity on anybody since the days they used to go after Yoko Ono.............only this is a bit worse.I think after a certain time frame it has just become a way of life to attack Sarah and vent.
 
Best summary, IMO

3) Sarah has had the ability to work and has done so, VERY WELL I might add since their divorce. Is it Andrew or the Queen's fault that after many years, she STILL DOESN"T know how to live within her means?

If there was a "I bow to you" emoticon that I could post here, I would.

All the rest is noise and jockeying and defending the indefensible. Sarah is not only of age, she's spent a lifetime letting money pour through her hands like water. No matter if it's $20K USD or millions USD per year - at the end of every cycle, she's broke and blaming.

That, sadly, is her legacy. Not her girls - the fact that she has squandered millions, has absolutely nothing to show for it, and yet finds it expedient to shove the blame elsewhere.
 
There hasn't been this much bad publicity on anybody since the days they used to go after Yoko Ono.............only this is a bit worse.I think after a certain time frame it has just become a way of life to attack Sarah and vent.
I am a sympathetic person by nature and always tend to give a person the benefit of a doubt, unless that person has totally exhausted both doubt and my patience! I grant you that Sarah was pilloried by the British press early in her marriage and much of it was uncalled for in my opinion. What we have at present is different; as many posters have pointed out, this is Sarah's second or third go round on the redemption trail. She must own up to her financial failure, see to it that if she cannot manage her affairs, then someone else must do so for her benefit, and go forth and sin no more! I don't think people are being gratuitously unkind on this thread. Just the opposite-- I think they are fed up with Sarah's behavior which seems to get worse instead of better.
 
Quite right, people are completely fed up of Sarah's ridiculour behaviour. I thought her attitude and line of argument on the Oprah show was deplorable. She really needs to look at the facts for herself in the cold light of day
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I thought she said that the princesses and Prince Andrews love for her was unconditional not the other way round.
About the house, the first house after the divorce thought about was a refurbishment of Royal Lod´ge (if I remember rightly) but both Prince Andrew and Sarah it would cost too much in upkeep. She rented a house but it was empty for ages, it is much cheaper and more luxurious to live a surrogate royal life with Andrew, and he is kind enough to let her.
In Starkie´s book he said that Romenda Lodge, her rented house was more or less home to John Bryan as well, and that John Bryan was absolutely certain that Sarah would marry him. Mr Fish fingers seems to have disappeared. What has happened to the kind offer of Princess Beatrice´s boyfriend to pay the debts. I imagine he has had a look at Sarah´s account books and it has made him think hard. Sarah seems to have got herself into a right mess this time.
 
So here's my rhetorical question...
Why hadn't someone close to her (friends, advisers, ex-husband, children, accountant, business associates) insisted she get professional assistance in managing her financial affairs?
Because she doesn't really have a true friend. It's kind of like Michael Jackson in a way, everybody sucking off her.
 
There hasn't been this much bad publicity on anybody since the days they used to go after Yoko Ono.............only this is a bit worse.I think after a certain time frame it has just become a way of life to attack Sarah and vent.
This is quite a bit different. Yoko never did something like this. She kept John away from a reconciliation with the Beatles and cats in heat sang better than she but she never did this sort of thing.

And Wisteria regarding the "GB" necklace, I agree: What sort of father would DARE do that? Reminds me of the courtier who said "Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar!"
 
And Wisteria regarding the "GB" necklace, I agree: What sort of father would DARE do that? Reminds me of the courtier who said "Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar!"

Okay, Russo dear, what does the "GB" stand for??:bang: If you cannot say it out loud, whisper it to me.:ohmy:
 
i think everyone is being quite harsh on sarah.

yes, she is having money problems. big deal. i believe now in crisis times, so many people have them. 20k british pounds per year is really not much for an ex-royal allowance.

yes, she got money for introducing andrew to x, y and z. big deal: should andrew not have wanted to befriend these people, it was very much up to him. sarah didn't put a gun in front of him to get them favours of any kind. she just introduced them - i introduce people all the time.

yes, she also got money from it. how is this any different to receiving money to participate in a show, from receiving clothes from a certain brand for free, from getting a holiday offered on a luxurious yatch because of your royal status or from other kinds of advantages royals get because of just being royals? all these favours come with an intention behind them: the brand will be more popular, the yatch will be booked up the next summer and the show will have a higher audience. it's not only the royal who benefits. besides, sarah's personal finances are no-one's business but sarah's. where she gets her money from is none of our business.

people make mistakes. what's worse is that, i bet beatrice, eugenie and andrew don't care about any of this: they love sarah and probably admitted what she did was wrong and judged how criticised sarah was being. if they don't care, why would we?
 
i think everyone is being quite harsh on sarah...
Actually Carlota I think you have made a good list of the reasons why Sarah doesn´t want to let go of the royal life style. Actually her personal finances are none of our business at all, but she keeps shoving them in front of us and whining about them and giving the impression that the Queen should help her out. I for one think the Queen has done a lot for her and it would be graceful on Sarah´s part to leave her out of this mess, which really she has no one else to blame for but herself.

Most children love their mothers,but it is a bit unusual for an ex-husband to love his ex-wife unconditionally, but that is what she said, so we have to try and believe that she knows what she is talking about even though she doesn't know much about living within her means
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom