False name, false identity, lies, entrapment, hidden mics and camera... that qualifies as being tricked as far as I'm concerned! Of course her actions were wrong, but desperate, scared people (as she was about her financial situation) can be manipulated into doing things. Sarah has admitted she was wrong and apologised, but this doesn't change the fact that she was tricked..
I don't wish to offend Sarah's loyal fans, but really and truthfully I have to say that personally I find it a bit much that Sarah, clearly up to no good herself [i.e by taking the cash for access] then has the gall to complain about other people whom she sees acting less than honestly; I also find it particuarly hard to stomach that the reason for her 'desperation' and 'being scared' was not due to some sort of hideous misfortune that had occurred to her but due to her long term and sustained uncontrolled expenditure......... When she got into such trouble, why did she not summon one of her proper professional advisers [she has access to the best legal and [genuine!!] financial advice available in the UK] tell them that she had 'messed up' [yet again!!] and asked for their help in setting things right.....
Surely too, the real people that suffer from her actions are her two daughters..........
As for Brand Sarah - people say it's all over? Admittedly it's hard to know without viewing figures for the TV show and sales figures for the book. But there are plenty of positive book reviews on Amazon, and enthusiastic fans have flocked to the signings in the US. There has also been plenty of highly enthusiastic reaction to FS on the OWN website. I feel that there is still a market for Sarah to make a living from writing and TV work. Her fanbase is wider and more loyal than many would believe. She doesn't need everyone to like her, but if there is a select, dedicated group throughout the world who will support her, buy her products etc, then that may be enough.
I queried the reaction here about the favourable reviews on the OWN website and was told by forum members that this is not necessarily representative of how American members who watched FS really feel as apparently anything unfavourable is immediately deleted!!
And as for 'Brand Sarah', even if Sarah had not been shooting herself in the foot with her 'cash for access' and her admissions [terrible for someone who has tried to pass herself off as a savvy business-person] 'that she never understood money' (I am paraphrasing), with all due respect to Sarah and her fans, there is only one way for 'Brand Sarah' and that is down. Sarah's only professional skill is a basic secretarial qualification [in fact she came joint bottom in her class at Secretarial College!]. She is quite an effective public speaker, but in view of her lack of formal qualifications, her only REAL interest, in other words her USP
[unique selling point] is that she was once a member of the BRF. As every day passes, she gets one further day away from the member of the BRF she once was.
I had never had the opportunity to watch the Channel 6 tv interview until just now, and listening to how carefully Sarah chooses her words about the Queen and even Andrew, I now get the distinct feeling that Sarah has been 'warned off' about mentioning them. People who book Sarah to be either a 'brand' Ambassador or even a Professional Speaker are actually doing it, surely, for the novelty of employing a 'Royal'. As it is becoming increasingly clear in her TV interviews that Sarah is now minimally linked to the BRF, I would think - particularly as there is a global recession on - that corporations don't have money to waste on a has-been; and anyway, isn't the focus now switching away from 51 year old has-beens to the new generation of Royals, principally William, Catherine and Harry?
I don't wish to offend anyone, but I really think that Sarah is flogging a dead horse and cannot really survive 'as a Royal personality' any more. What she can do now is more difficult to pronounce upon - other than approach the Queen for assistance, which might yet be granted as the Jubilee is looming and I am quite sure the prospect of this loose cannon getting yet again into financial difficulty [which would seem a certainty in view of Sarah's continued failure to adopt a low profile] would be the greater of two evils in the minds of the Queen and her advisors. Which would mean Sarah, in return for her financial expenses for modest being met and a roof over her head, would in return be required to disappear from view.....
I should make it clear that I do not wish to offend anyone; I do not 'hate' Sarah in the slightest, but she has now gone quite a way from the frumpy overweight 22 year old that I first met, who in those days was regarded [somewhat cruelly] as such a non-starter that she herself did not believe that ANYONE would want to marry her. Well-versed in the ways of the world in a way that her brother-in-law's wife was not, she then hooked a Prince but hadn't the sense not to blow it. Sure, she made mistakes, and which of us has not, but to keep making one mistake after the other....words fail me.
Alex