Sarah, Duchess of York Current Events 15: October 2009-December 2010

[Skydragon]

When Sarah, Duchess of York, unwrapped the presents at her 50th birthday party at the Lanesborough Hotel in London on Thursday night, she may, like many children, have been hoping for something simple and guaranteed to please: cash.
By all accounts, she needs it. Birthdays may be a time to reflect, but as the Duchess tots up the accounts on her half-century, the figures make unpleasant reading.

Who will bail out Sarah, Duchess of York? - Telegraph

She might have been mulling over the past 50 years - or wondering how big the drinks bill would turn out to be.

Either way, the Duchess of York looked pensive as she left her birthday party on Thursday night.

Despite the financial setbacks of the past few weeks, Sarah Ferguson decided to put on a five-star dinner at London's Lanesborough Hotel to mark her milestone 50th.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...#ixzz0UBKXUQPn

[Zonk]

Another article about Sarah selling her book rights, which I thought she did last month.

Sarah Ferguson sells off intellectual rights to her children's books as she faces £600,000 debts | Mail Online

[iceflower]

The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, during a photocall to announce
that HandMade plc have announced that they have acquired all of
Sarah Ferguson's intellectual property, and they will be creating TV
films around her characters Little Red and Red Ruby, at The Arts Club
on Dover Street, central London, October 23, 2009:

I like the setting of the photocall.


** Pic 1 ** Pic 2 ** Pic 3 ** Pic 4 ** Pic 5 ** belga **

[Mermaid1962]

Even though she might make a great deal of money with this deal, it must be an emotional loss to sell off one's intellectual rights.

Originally Posted by Zonk

Another article about Sarah selling her book rights, which I thought she did last month.

Sarah Ferguson sells off intellectual rights to her children's books as she faces £600,000 debts | Mail Online

[Ukroyalist]

Thrilled for the Duchess. I hope this sets her up for life.

[Skydragon]

Originally Posted by Zonk

Another article about Sarah selling her book rights, which I thought she did last month.

Sarah Ferguson sells off intellectual rights to her children's books as she faces £600,000 debts | Mail Online

The article seemed to disappear last month, so perhaps the deal was not signed at that point. Let us hope she manages to save some of this money, after she has met her debt commitments, of course.

[queenofthelight]

Sarah, Duchess of York hits back, she is on the cover of new Hellomagazine (26/10/2009).

Jude Law's baby... Samantha Burke presents Sophia only in 'HELLO!'

[Lighthouse]

Sounds like it's time to pay the bills my dear.

[Patra]

I love her feisty quote, "I am not, and never will be a victim."- go Fergie!

[rmay286]

Me too. That is a very typical "Sarah" attitude: to come out fighting.

Originally Posted by Lighthouse

Sounds like it's time to pay the bills my dear.

Duchess of York sets the record straight about her debts in a 'HELLO!' exclusive - hellomagazine.com

She does promise to pay "every penny" back, according to this article.

'It's been difficult and challenging': Sarah Ferguson admits losing £600,000 life savings | Mail Online

Sarah is right, a lot of people have lost money with the recession. I don't doubt that what she says is true and she will bounce back from her financial difficulties again.

Sarah mentioned that Eugenie finds articles about Sarah "laughable" because they're so far from the truth. And Prince Andrew in his interview with the Telegraph also said that a lot of the articles about Sarah are "scurrilous" and not fully accurate. Obviously Andrew and Eugenie going to say the best about Sarah, but the papers are also usually going to say the worst, so I do take most of their recent stories about Sarah with a big grain of salt.

[Patra]

Thank you for posting the entire article, I especially like the end where Fergie says,

"I'm just me and I'll never change. I always come out fighting."

She has such an honest, go get 'em attitude, which I've always admired about the Duchess. Additionally, I like how positively she speaks of Prince Andrew. She and her girls seem especially close to me.

[Wisteria]

Originally Posted by Patra;

"I'm just me and I'll never change. I always come out fighting.
]

Those are the words that Sarah used when she was first engaged and that was when it was said that a "breath of fresh air" was entering the royal family.
At the time I took it as meaning "I will always stay the nice simple person I am at the moment". The fighting part of this quote was not said at that time.
Unfortunately, instead of meaning the breath of fresh air it seemed to show stubborness, and it seemed she couldn´t manage to change from a carefree woman who had had already had a fairly long relationship , to the wife of a member of the British royal family. These words instead of a promise became just the opposite.
If she had given just a little, perhaps everything would have been almost perfect.
I am afraid that after she said these now famous words and on watching her wedding, when she walked down the aisle smiling and winking at people, I felt that perhaps it wasn´t going to be quite what I, at least, had taken her meaning to be.
She had everything going for her at the time.
Her debts aren´t only because of the recession, her spending ways began straight after her wedding and it is a bit like yo yo dieting, she tries and then relapses and lives beyond her means and the Queen said clearly she will not pick up the tabs.
I admire her for doing everything she can to pay her debts but if some of this fighting energy was spent avoiding getting into debt in the first place, it might be much better for her and her creditors.

[Skydragon]

Originally Posted by Wisteria

I admire her for doing everything she can to pay her debts but if some of this fighting energy was spent avoiding getting into debt in the first place, it might be much better for her and her creditors.

I can't help but agree with you. She doesn't even run her own household and still can't manage not to get into debt. I have taken this from the Mail article -

It is understood that Hartmoor collapsed after the Duchess failed to land major endorsement deals and allegedly fell out with her majority business partner, US multi-millionaire investment banker Todd Morley, who was not her adviser

So perhaps not the innocent victim of bad advice as she makes out!

[Ukroyalist]

I've just read the Hello article and the Duchess hasn't been paid a penny for the article. She is an amazing woman. She looks fantastic at 50 and I'm so pleased her latest business deal looks set to make her fortune.

[Skydragon]

I take it you are referring to the hard copy Hello and not the online version.

How silly of the woman if she did it just for the publicity, the money could have gone towards paying her debts!

[Zonk]

But then she would have been accused of selling out on her name again.
Really, she can't win.

She does a free article to discuss the problem and she is criticized for not being smart with her business affairs (I think there a lot of people at this present time who can be accused of that). She didn't try to hide the problem by pretending it didn't happen or it doesn't exists.

Like many people in the business world, it appears that Sarah took a lot of risk with her "retirement" money. I can think of the Madoff victims to name some other recent ones. Its a shame that it didn't work out but that why some investments are called risky.

At least Sarah has the opporunity (with selling of her rights) to take care of her debts and try to get a solid footing. At her age, she needs to do a mix and mash of investments.

[Skydragon]

Whether she was paid or not, it was the Duchess of York name that got the article written. I don't see them offering a free publicity shot to a Madoff victim to explain why they have lost their money and can't pay their debts!

[rmay286]

I don't think the articles in Hello! Canada overlap with the ones in the British version of Hello, so I probably won't get to read the actual article; but from the online quotes, it sounds like Sarah had been enduring negative publicity for months and she finally decided to defend herself. What was she supposed to do? She could have kept her head down and let people think what they wanted to think, but these weren't one or two critical articles.

Ever since the Wythenshawe documentary, The Daily Mail has been producing several disparaging articles about Sarah per week, even if these are just a re-hash of old quotes/stories. And some of the stories they report are just not true at all. But Sarah doesn't have anyone in the media to defend her. At least with politics, there tend to be newspapers with different ideological slants--one newspaper will tend to be more generous to one party and more critical of another. But the papers that report about Sarah's activities tend to be tabloids or tabloid-based papers. Maybe that's partly Sarah's fault, maybe she goes to the wrong places for publicity when she wants her charitable causes to be taken seriously, and gets in the papers for the wrong reasons as a result; but there is no media outlet that sees Sarah's activities as "headline news" except the tabloids. And they can be merciless and stir up a lot of false rumours.

After an onslaught of the kind of negative press Sarah has been experiencing, I think most people would want to defend themselves. There were rumours that Sarah was bankrupt, and after what she went through in the 90s, I doubt Sarah would tolerate that kind of rumour if it wasn't true. There was also a story that she would be paid a lot of money for an exclusive with Hello!, but Ukroyalist has just said Sarah wasn't paid for the article.

If someone wrote false stories about me day after day and no one in the media bothered to check the facts and write a more balanced article in response, I would want to defend myself, too. Members of the royal family probably don't feel the same need to defend themselves against negative press because for one thing, they are used to it and know it goes with the territory; and also, they know that their status won't change after one negative article. Sarah doesn't have that kind of security. Yes, Sarah could just slink quietly off into the night and try to stay out of the media, but she supports causes that she thinks deserve media attention. Her only option then is to try to shift the direction of her publicity by telling her own side of the story, which is why she gave the interview to Hello!.

[rmay286]

Originally Posted by Skydragon

Whether she was paid or not, it was the Duchess of York name that got the article written. I don't see them offering a free publicity shot to a Madoff victim to explain why they have lost their money and can't pay their debts!

A Madoff victim wouldn't have needed to give an interview to defend him or herself, because the papers wouldn't have been writing critical articles about him or her for weeks on end!

[Skydragon]

Originally Posted by rmay286

... And some of the stories they report are just not true at all. But Sarah doesn't have anyone in the media to defend her. --- ---
If someone wrote false stories about me day after day and no one in the media bothered to check the facts and write a more balanced article in response,

Are you seriously suggesting that every negative article about Sarah is solely from the Mail? Whether some of them are true or not, Sarah is hardly going to say 'yes, I owe these people money'. None of the papers IMO write 'false stories' about Sarah day after day, but when Sarah comes to the notice of the press, it is normally for doing something rather ill advised.

A Madoff victim wouldn't have needed to give an interview to defend him or herself, because the papers wouldn't have been writing critical articles about him or her for weeks on end!

Zonk compared her ill advised investment (matter of opinion as to whether that lost her the money) to a Madoff victim, hence the reply. You keep saying the press has been writing negative articles about her for weeks on end, can you link a few of these weekly negative untrue stories?

Instead of obtaining even more publicity for any and all media to dissect and point out her errors, ITO, she would have been better advised to keep her head down and pay off her debts. If Sarah didn't keep seeking publicity for herself, she wouldn't have the media writing anything about her!