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

[NotAPretender]

I have to agree with Idriel on this one.

I think if Sarah had received a signficant divorce settlement she would have blown thru that as well. It appears that she has lived beyond her means for at least the last 20 years. You can only borrow from Peter to pay Paul for so long before both Peter and Paul AT THE SAME TIME ask for their money back.

Hence my suggestion for financial guardianship. This situation is awful, but let's face it, an even more desperate Sarah after her speaking engagement dry up is beyond comprehension. She will literally stop at nothing now. What next? I put my eyes out in anticipation of what next.

No, they need to do the bear hug on her now, get her off the stage. We've seen what a broke Sarah will do. What will a broke Sarah without a future do? I don't believe that she'd go the suicide route, narcissistic/histrionic personalities don't.

Maybe an episode or two of the Real Housewives of New Jersey?

 

[Russophile]

Seems that one was rewarded far more for her disloyalty and infidelity than then other.

Seems to me one was much smarter than the other. . .

 

[Iluvbertie]

The royal family did not reward Diana with 17 mil, Diana cunningly, somewhat maliciously set out to do as much damage and get as much as she could from the Royal Family. Fergie did not go to the level of Diana to get that much.

Plus, Fergie got a very good divorce settlement. I don't really see the argument that she did not. She got money, money for the kids, a place to live and my guess is that she does not pay for or do the groceries at Royal Lodge. Every thing else is just extra that Sarah did not need, but she got it, and then she lost it. Stiff Bickies, lifes tough. Its not Andrews or the BRFs fault she has no education and that she herself as ruined any chance of having a real job.

That is exactly my point - the poster I was replying too asked if the royal family should reward infidelity and disloyalty saying that they shouldn't.

I am saying that they did with one ex-wife and not the other.

The argument that Sarah got a good divorce settlement doesn't wash I am sorry.

Certainly Andrew wasn't as wealthy as Andrew but the Queen and Queen Mum helped pay Charles' settlement to Diana and it almost cleaned him out and she had individual wealth in her own right that should have been put into the mix - her inheritance from her father should have been split with Charles to make things fair.

Sarah got a pittance in comparison for someone who did far less damage at that time. Obviously she should have made interviews and publically trashed the father of her children and said that he was unfit to do things and lied to the public - I have far more respect for her than Diana and the RF have lost a lot of the respect I once had for them (especially the Queen) due to the long term consequences of their meanness in 1996 - reward one daughter-in-law's treachery but not the others.

 

[CrownPrincess5]

Seems to me one was much smarter than the other. . .

Hahaha. Exactly.

 

[Russophile]

I think those are good 2 cents, Lady Karen!

She has apologized, but as with most everyone that gets caught, she is sorry that she was caught, not for what she has done.

Your above quote reminds me of that scene in Gone with the Wind where Scarlett's 2nd husband has just bit it and she was rather tipsy and she tells Rhett she is afraid of going to hell. Rhett says that she would surely do the same thing again, she's just sorry she got caught, not sorry she did it.

 

[rmay286]

I don't know the details of Diana's divorce settlement, but I don't think Diana was "rewarded". Diana was just able to get the public on her side, while Sarah was seen as "vulgar."

Now I'm curious actually. How did Diana manage to get so much money and Sarah get so little? I just looked up this article, and it says that Charles is not permitted to sell Duchy property or use Duchy capital...so he had to borrow money from the Queen to pay the divorce settlement.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/25/1090693836685.html

If that's true, then how does it even matter that Charles had an income from the Duchy of Cornwall and Andrew just had a navy salary?

 

[Russophile]

I don't know the details of Diana's divorce settlement, but I don't think Diana was "rewarded". Diana was just able to get the public on her side, while Sarah was seen as "vulgar."

Don't forget Diana leeked all sorts of things to the press to test the waters. (This from Tina Brown's book)

 

[CrownPrincess5]

Diana used the press and the public to get what she wanted.

 

[Idriel]

She had never deliberately intended on hurting the royal family with her actions.

I completely agree with you. I do not doubt for a second that Sarah never means to hurt anyone.
But the question is: I am supposed to care what her intentions were? Were Andrew or the Royal family supposed to?
'I'm sorry I cheated on you/humiliated you/hurt your reputation/dragged your name through the mud/etc.. My intentions were spotless'.

Theyy were behind closed doors (so to speak) in supposedly private situations made public for a salacious public by an unspeakable press.

Being a Royal comes with huge privileges and also some concessions, especially when it comes to privacy.

When you are HRH The Duchess of York, wife of the Queen's second son and you are having your toes sucked by your lover, in front of your daughters, on the open deck of a yacht, you simply cannot have any expectation of privacy.
I find incredible that you would blame the press or the public (who is entitled to know what kind of person their taxes fund) for such contemptuous and brazen indiscretions. Diana, for all her faults, was never that reckless with her lover(s). Neither was Charles for that matter.

Behind closed doors? If only!

Diana deliberately tried to destroy the heir to the throne, lied to the public in and about a book and in an interview and she was rewarded for her disloyalty and infidelity with 17 million pounds.

Diana was not rewarded for anything, she was reasonably entitled to a large settlement. Comparisons between these two are absurd because their situation were very different.

Firstly, Charles was as bad a husband as Diana was a bad wife, whereas Fergie was clearly more at fault in the break down of her own marriage. In term of settlement, it makes a difference.

Secondly, Diana, as the mother of the future King, was never to have the freedom of enterprise Fergie would enjoy. Simply put, she could never work, make an income as a private citizen or market herself the way Fergie did. And this is the critical difference.
The Royal family had a financial responsibility towards Diana because by marrying the heir to the throne she gave up a large chunk of autonomy and the ability to make money on her own in case of divorce. Fergie did not. If anything, she financially benefited from marrying in the Royal family, because her image was worth millions after she divorced, and she was free to cash in on it (and cash in she did). As a divorcee, the only work Diana would have ever been able to do was unpaid charity work.
Of course I agree that Diana used public sympathy to plump the numbers, but she would have had a pretty penny anyway.

And of course, as has been already pointed out, divorce settlement are calculated based on the husband's worth.

So trying to bring up Diana to somehow convinced people Sarah was entitled to more than she got simply doesn't cut it.

 

[rominet09]

Duchess of York urged to ‘come clean’ or face parliamentary inquiry - Times Online

It seems it will go further....I really wonder what will happen now !

 

[Idriel]

^from the Times article:

John Mann, a member of the Commons Treasury Select Committee until the election, called on the duchess last night to reveal details of any payments she may have received as a result of her connection to Prince Andrew.

“If she is acting as a consultant she needs to bring it into the open so people can make a judgment,” he said. “The way to avoid a parliamentary inquiry is to come clean. People have a right to know when a public figure is involved. If she is acting as some kind of lobbyist it is foolhardy for her not to declare her earnings to someone who has a semi-governmental role.”

Excatly what I have been saying.
What she was offering to do was akin to lobbying.

 

[Jaya]

Oh, stop it. They all sell themselves. Sarah is just a product of marrying into a family that has never earned a dime, but thinks the world is coming to them. Paying taxes, until not too long ago was beneath them (how they got a good deal of this fortune) as the rest of the suckers were paying taxes and supporting them. Cutting ribbons and the like is not work. She is frivolous and silly. So are they. Look at the jewlels that hang around the neck of the DOC. Taken from governments who are less tha friendly at times. And she is a former mistress. Good job. Tours through Buckingham Palace, were instituted to pay for the fire at Windsor, which they had hoped would be paid for by taxpayers. That was "their home". Everyone sells what they have when they need cash. Andrew is what she has.

Countess :
Thanks for bringing in some very valid points about the others and the indiscredtions which did not reach the papers. Sarah is the scapegoat for a lot of things.

 

[Duchessmary]

I have to think that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Maybe on a smaller scale, but still it makes me wonder.

 

[Renata4711]

Regardless of any smear campaigns, I have a soft spot for Fergie!

She is so refreshingly un-royal, and that's what made her not just a royal, but a celeb, at the time of her marriage, and beyond.

The Royal Family and the gutter press have made her what she is now.

 

[muriel]

She had never deliberately intended on hurting the royal family with her actions. Theyy were behind closed doors (so to speak) in supposedly private situations made public for a salacious public by an unspeakable press.

Thats just not right. Her actions were always going to be very hurtful to the girls and Andrew, irrespective of whether the infirmation reached the public domain, or only to them!

 

[maria-olivia]

Thanks Rominet for your intesting thread and its comments.
We are lucky , in Belgium this will never happen to Prince Philippe ! Nice day

 

[muriel]

...The argument that Sarah got a good divorce settlement doesn't wash I am sorry...Sarah got a pittance in comparison for someone who did far less damage at that time.

Don't you think it is a bit irrelevant taling about Sarah's divorce settlement 14 years after the event? If she had to object, she should have in the mid-1990s, not now!

 

[queenofthelight]

Sarah Ferguson wants to leave Britain permanently, friends say | Mail Online (26/05/2010).

 

[rominet09]

Thank you ! Of course never !

Thanks Rominet for your intesting thread and its comments.
We are lucky , in Belgium this will never happen to Prince Philippe ! Nice day

 

[bluestocking]

Can you imagine how ashamed her daughters must be? They're too young to be expected to deal with her and they shouldn't have to spend their own money to support her, so I hope her ex husband lays down the law. She probably ought to settle in the U.S. and look about for a book deal or another commercial deal and do the talk show circuit. We like Fergie and Americans believe in second chances. There's no reason for the royals to have any official dealings with her, but she should be capable of supporting herself here.

 

[Jacknch]

Sarah Ferguson wants to leave Britain permanently, friends say | Mail Online (26/05/2010).

I really do not think there is any reason for Sarah to "flee" the country and make a fresh start in the US! Firstly, she already spends much time over there and I fail to see how moving there "permanently" could be constituted as a "fresh start". Secondly, if she ran her life properly as a private citizen or carried out her life in a quiet, peaceful, simple and un-ostentatious way, living in a quiet place like she used to before marriage, then there would be no reason or excuse for the media to "hound" her. But it seems she enjoys an aristocratic lifestyle, at the centre of attention, lots of money to spend and functions to attend, holidays to have - i.e. a jet-set life - and so it's hardly going to be a fresh start if she carries on regardless!

 

[tommy1716]

From the daily mail article

Mr Shuter, a former publicist, told CBS the The Duchess’s financial problems were to blame for her behaviour.

‘Sarah's had financial trouble for a long, long time,' he said


'And she can't win. When she got the job for Weight Watchers the press was awfully cruel to her.

'They said a royal should not be working.

'But it's awful expensive being the Duchess of York.

'But if Sarah lands in JFK, she can't get into a yellow cab, she has to have a security guard. It's terribly expensive.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1281505/Sarah-Ferguson-wants-leave-Britain-permanently-friends-say.html#ixzz0p2D7TqHe


Why does she need a security guard? She isn't royal anymore, she just thinks she is. If she stopped making awful mistakes like this one she wouldn't be in the papers so much and then there would be even less need for 'security'. Its only expensive being the Duchess of York becuase she wants it to be. Looking at the footage of her arriving at the airport in NY fronm the other day you can see that she still thinks she is royal, look at how she goes off shaking everyones hands like she is still a member of the RF. Sarah's trouble is she thinks she is Royal still.

 

[Madame Royale]

Starting a "fresh" in the US? Impossible! It's just not a realistic move, if at all being considered as a serious alternative.

and look about for a book deal

All else fails, write a book? Something I think the establishment would like to see avoided if possible.

Sarah, imo, wants the social recognition, ie: acceptance. And America, being the celebrity based culture that it is, is willing to embrace her ONLY because she is a former member of the Royal Family. In the US, members of the Royal Family are not generally considered as being part of an historic, though very modern, institution of significance first and foremost, but as celebrities (I talk of course of the wider public at large). Having a little (or near enough) "blue blood" floating around the polished marble floors of New York makes the locals cosy up and where she isn't appreciated in the UK, she finds that acceptance in the States. Even if it is likely to be all smoke and mirrors, at least she feels accepted.

It's a shame, really.

Still, I do not believe the States is a place to be 'reborn', in any such case as this.

 

[MandysRoyalty]

The people I feel sorry for in this spectacle are their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Sarah has been touted as being a good mother for staying on amicable terms with Prince Andrew, but was it really for the girls’ sake, or to stay within Andrew’s financial good graces? Beatrice and Eugenie are always on hand looking mildly miserable when their mother walks a red carpet or needs a photo opportunity, so it’s probably all about the cache they can lend her as true British princesses. They are nothing more than Fergie’s tickets to staying within the royal orbit.

Those two girls have probably never seen themselves reflected in their mother’s eyes, only the dollar signs dancing within. So forget Fergie, just say a prayer for Bea and Eugenie.

 

[MandysRoyalty]

^from the Times article:

Excatly what I have been saying.
What she was offering to do was akin to lobbying.

Yes, that is true. She is behaving like a special interest group/politician. If that's what she wants to do, she should at least be clear about it.

I'm disappointed. I've criticized Fergie in the past, but then decided she was pulling her weight after all and I gave her another chance. Now this happens.

And as far as other royals go, if the world didn't want to give, royals wouldn't have anything. Same goes for the Duchess. With that title, she knows she's set for life (if she's responsible with the money, that is). A title and prestige impresses people, full stop. If the public really saw them as worthless, they'd abolish the system. In Fergie's case, she would've been ignored and never accepted by Weight Watchers or any of the other companies. Title lends cache, and that's just the way it is.

Besides, it isn't just the royals; in their place would be the (relatively speaking) commoner family of a politician expecting to fly first-class, get taxpayer funded taxis, shopping trips, et al.

 

[sophie25]

At the end of the day the DOY's idea of being "penniless" and that of the rest of us are two different things. She is wealthy by most peoples standards but she just seems to want more and more and more. It is pure greed. I don't have a fraction of what she has but I wouldn't sell out my family for all the money in the world so she really needs to take a long hard look at herself. My God, this woman has seen little children suffer through extreme poverty, among other things, in the charity work she has done so one would think she would be more than satisfied in having a very comfortable lifestyle along with two healthy children without resorting to making sleazy deals in hotel rooms. It just shows that some people are never happy.

 

[MandysRoyalty]

It also just goes to show that some people are never embarrassed, either. See the link below from the New York Times - the Duchess has been running around collecting awards and hitting up bookstores in the midst of the scandal:

Scandal or No, the Duchess of York is fully booked

I would be hiding in a dark room full of shame - not that I would do something like this in the first place! I get the feeling that all that Botox has gone to her brain. There is no shame or a noble sentiment in her entire body!

 

[NotAPretender]

Thank you

I completely agree with you. I do not doubt for a second that Sarah never means to hurt anyone.
But the question is: I am supposed to care what her intentions were? Were Andrew or the Royal family supposed to?
'I'm sorry I cheated on you/humiliated you/hurt your reputation/dragged your name through the mud/etc.. My intentions were spotless'.Being a Royal comes with huge privileges and also some concessions, especially when it comes to privacy.

When you are HRH The Duchess of York, wife of the Queen's second son and you are having your toes sucked by your lover, in front of your daughters, on the open deck of a yacht, you simply cannot have any expectation of privacy.
I find incredible that you would blame the press or the public (who is entitled to know what kind of person their taxes fund) for such contemptuous and brazen indiscretions. Diana, for all her faults, was never that reckless with her lover(s). Neither was Charles for that matter.

Behind closed doors? If only!
Diana was not rewarded for anything, she was reasonably entitled to a large settlement. Comparisons between these two are absurd because their situation were very different.

Firstly, Charles was as bad a husband as Diana was a bad wife, whereas Fergie was clearly more at fault in the break down of her own marriage. In term of settlement, it makes a difference.

Secondly, Diana, as the mother of the future King, was never to have the freedom of enterprise Fergie would enjoy. Simply put, she could never work, make an income as a private citizen or market herself the way Fergie did. And this is the critical difference.
The Royal family had a financial responsibility towards Diana because by marrying the heir to the throne she gave up a large chunk of autonomy and the ability to make money on her own in case of divorce. Fergie did not. If anything, she financially benefited from marrying in the Royal family, because her image was worth millions after she divorced, and she was free to cash in on it (and cash in she did). As a divorcee, the only work Diana would have ever been able to do was unpaid charity work.
Of course I agree that Diana used public sympathy to plump the numbers, but she would have had a pretty penny anyway.

And of course, as has been already pointed out, divorce settlement are calculated based on the husband's worth.

So trying to bring up Diana to somehow convinced people Sarah was entitled to more than she got simply doesn't cut it.

I quoted your entire post because it's brilliant. There simply is no comparison between the two women's proceedings.

 

[kristens]

Maybe she should get together with the resigned and disgraced former governor of the American state of Illinois. They could, perhaps, do a reality TV show together

 

[Vasillisos Markos]

Sarah would be a producer's dream for a reality show. Can you imagine the ratings that would pull from the public?