While the focus is on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, his arrest has prompted questions about what’s next for his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
Ferguson, known by the tabloids as Fergie, married then-Prince Andrew in 1986 and divorced him 10 years later after an alleged affair with an American financial adviser. It was one of several scandals in the 1990s and 2000s involving the former duchess, which was considered an embarrassment to the royal family.
Ferguson has supported Mountbatten-Windsor through a wave of allegations stemming from his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but she has yet to comment on his arrest on Thursday.
She previously described him as “wonderful” and said they were “the happiest divorced couple in the world”, later denying the claims against him and calling his victim Virginia Giuffre a liar.
While Ferguson’s ties to Mountbatten-Windsor have kept her close to the Epstein scandal, her closeness to a convicted sex offender threatens to put her identity in the public eye as more details come to light.
News of the former prince’s arrest comes just days after it was revealed that six of Ferguson’s businesses will be struck off the Companies House register after going dormant. It is not clear what each did, but one appeared to be in the public relations business and the other in the retail sector.
Even after being convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor, Ferguson’s money problems have been documented over the years as he struggles to remain financially independent.
The row also exposed Ferguson’s financial ties — and alleged dependence — on Epstein. The allegations have opened up questions about funding the lifestyles of her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, now in their 30s, who were pictured working low-paid jobs in their 20s and going on lavish holidays.
Ferguson has been involved in several scandals to cash in on her royal connections, including two tell-all memoirs in 1996 and 2011, and in 2010 when she was exposed in a News of the World sting operation in which she tried to sell access to her ex-husband for £500,000. She tells Majer Mahmoud, who is undercover as a “fake sheikh,” that she will “open any door you want,” promising him a tenfold return on his investment.
Later apologizing for the scandal, Ferguson said “it’s true my finances are under pressure”.
Epstein’s files, documents collected by US authorities in an investigation into the notorious financier, show how financially dependent she was on her friendship with him, including when he wired $150,000 (£104,000) to Ferguson in 2001. It went public earlier that year.
She first claimed that she broke off contact with Epstein in 2006 after learning of the allegations. However, US Department of Justice files show that she continued her relationship with him.
“Can’t wait to see you,” she wrote in a 2009 email. Another email between Epstein and his aides showed he paid $14,080 to fly Ferguson and her two daughters, then 19 and 20, to the US for meals.
A few days later she wrote to him: “Thank you Jeffrey for being the brother I always wanted.”
The following year, in another email, she wrote: “You are a legend.” Later in the same email, she said: “I am at your service. Marry me.”
Nine months later, Ferguson publicly apologized for her association with him, saying in an interview with the Evening Standard newspaper: “I abhor pedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know it was the biggest error of judgment on my part.”
But privately, the former duchess sent an email to “humbly apologize” for publicly condemning Epstein, calling him “a great friend to me and my family.”
Later, when the conversation became public, she told the media that she had sent him the email “to minimize Epstein and his threats.”
When the US government released the first batch of Epstein files in September last year, several charities associated with the then-duchess cut ties with her, including the Teenage Cancer Trust and the children’s hospice Julia’s House, both of which she was a patron.
Natasha’s Allergy Research Foundation released a statement saying it was “disturbed” to read her comments and also removed her as a patron.
Nothing unearthed in the files pointed to any criminal activity by Ferguson, who appeared to have stopped using the duchess title when her ex-husband stripped him of his title, but it could be more of a scandal.
