Sarah Ferguson also pays the price for her friendship with pedophile Epstein.
The Duchess of York and ex-wife of Prince Andrew expressed support for the financier in private emails, even though he had already been convicted of sexual offenses.
LondonSix years after he committed suicide in prison, the financier, billionaire and American pedophile Jeffrey Epstein The scandal continues to rack up victims, in this case second-class victims, in addition to the many women who have accused him of sex trafficking. This time, his ghost has haunted Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and ex-wife of Prince Andrew, also disgraced for his connection to Epstein. The Duchess was removed this Monday as a patron of the children's foundation. Julia's House, a hospice that cares for seriously ill children in southern England; she has also been removed from the Prevent Breast Cancer Foundation and two other charities. The decision follows the revelation this weekend of an email Ferguson sent to Epstein in 2011 in which she portrayed herself as close to the convicted sex offender.
Emails revealed by The Sun show that the Duchess maintained contact with the man who irreversibly compromised Prince Andrew's reputation, to the point that Elizabeth II ended up removing him from public lifeIn one of the messages, Ferguson thanks Epstein for his "generosity" after receiving financial aid worth 15,000 pounds to settle debts. The revelation has reopened the controversy over the lightheartedness with which some members of the British royal family treated the American financier despite the serious accusations surrounding him.
The Epstein scandal is not a distant issue for the Duchess of York. Her relationship with Andreu, despite their divorce in 1996, has always been close. They share a residence at Royal Lodge, Windsor, and Ferguson has been one of the most consistent voices in defense of the prince. But that loyalty has come at a price. When Andreu officially fell from grace in 2019, following allegations of abuse by Virginia GiuffreSarah Ferguson, then just 17, saw her name inevitably associated with one of the most serious crises in the British monarchy in decades. Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Andreu in London, after Epstein took her to the home of his lover and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, now imprisoned in the United States. The case was closed in 2022 with a multi-million-dollar out-of-court settlement, but Andreu's reputation has never been restored, although he has always denied any relationship with Giuffre.
The Duchess's Double Game
The emails revealed by the British press make anyone who reads them blush, considering Epstein's crimes. The emails read: "I know you feel tragically disappointed in me. And I must humbly apologize before you and your heart for that. You have always been a faithful, generous, and supreme friend to me and my family. I apologize for not having responded to you before I had; I was paralyzed by bread. I couldn't see you or speak to you, and that if I did, it would create even more problems for you, for the Duke, and for me. I was broken and lost.
These lines frontally contradict her public statements and expose a double game that has now taken its toll. The new blow of the stake of the ghost of Epstein in the hearts of the royals This coincides with another high-voltage political episode in the United Kingdom related to Epstein. In early September, Prime Minister Keir Starmer dismissed Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the United States and a veteran shadowy force in the Labour Party for the past three decades, after emails surfaced in which the former minister in the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown displayed a much clearer picture.