As we’ve heard, Sarah Ferguson has been in the wind for months now. Switzerland, the UAE, Ireland have all been in the mix for “places where Sarah has stayed or is currently staying.” She’s apparently been hopping around from one A-list luxury spa to another. The other day, I suggested that if Sarah is actually paying her bills, she’s easily blown through a million dollars in two months, purely on her luxury accommodations. But is she paying her bills? She’s famously always broke, and she famously blows through fortunes in a matter of weeks. Well, the Mail had a piece which basically asked “how is Sarah affording her escape?” The Mail doesn’t even know, but they’ve got Andrew Lownie saying that she’s probably skipping out on the bills. Meanwhile, Tom Sykes literally went to Ireland to try to track down Sarah, only he couldn’t find her. His sources claim that Sarah’s only bet right now is a lucrative book deal for a real “tell-all.” From The Royalist Substack:
I’ve been trying to find Sarah Ferguson over the past few days, as there are persistent rumors that she is in Ireland, potentially just a few miles away from Royalist Towers, near her mother’s ancestral home, Powerscourt.
The bad news, I’m afraid, is that I haven’t found her, but trying to track her down has prompted me to write this explainer about why I believe, for the British royal family right now, especially King Charles, the most dangerous book looming over them may not be another volume from California but a potential tell-all by Sarah.
They would be unwise to assume it will never be written, given that the former Duchess of York has little to lose at this stage. She finds herself fully cast out and “needs money”. She has no official role and no access to public funds, and her charities have dropped her after the most recent Epstein files dump, calling him her “supreme friend.”
At the same time, Ferguson’s taste for luxury has not dimmed. She reportedly spent nearly a month over the winter at Paracelsus Recovery in Switzerland, a hushed, ultra-discreet wellness clinic where a stay can cost around $17,000 a night. Reports describe her bouncing between borrowed villas, Gulf boltholes and high-end retreats (including one in Donegal, Ireland) even as friends brief that she is effectively broke and “hard up, homeless and alone” after being forced, with her husband, to leave Royal Lodge.
It is exactly the combination that has always made Ferguson volatile: no money, expensive habits, and a sense that the palace has hung her out to dry.
Against that backdrop, publishing executives have already begun circling. Tabloid and celebrity outlets in Britain, Australia, and the United States have all reported that major houses have approached Ferguson about a warts-and-all memoir.
One report even suggested Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are privately anxious that Ferguson could lift the curtain on behind-the-scenes conversations around their own exit from royal life. Courtiers, for their part, fear a “pulling a Harry” scenario: a big-money deal in exchange for a narrative the institution cannot control.
A tell-all Ferguson autobiography would be sensational. And she has already proved that she is willing to write things that upset the palace….Prince Harry’s Spare reportedly commanded a $20 million advance and became the fastest-selling nonfiction book in history. Ferguson’s agents will therefore be acutely aware of the value of a no-holds-barred account from the mother of two princesses, ex-wife of the most disgraced Windsor, and confidante of Diana.
For publishers, the calculation is simple. Spare showed that the appetite for intimate royal disclosures is vast and global. Industry estimates suggest Prince Harry’s deal with Penguin Random House was worth around $20 million in advances alone, with total earnings higher once sales are included.
One literary source told me they thought Sarah could well get the same kind of money for a full Andrew tell-all. Whatever qualms some imprints might have about reputational blowback, there will always be others willing to pay for the scandal, the big story, the promise of secrets finally revealed on the record.
Palace optimists say that Ferguson has “ruled out” a tell-all, saying she is too legally exposed and too protective of her daughters to go nuclear. They note that she is still, at some level, emotionally attached to Andrew and that any book that truly lays out what went on with Epstein could devastate him. That may be true for now. But her situation is, shall we say, fluid; her finances uncertain and her safety net threadbare.
Somewhat hilariously, Sykes’ piece reads like a book pitch on Sarah’s behalf. The reason why the rumors about Sarah writing a book are everywhere right now is because the royal reporters are practically begging her to do it, to sell her story, to really sell every scrap of information she has about the Windsors. The thing is, Sarah might actually get a book deal, but it won’t be a deal for $20 million, nor will any respectable publisher want to get in business with Sarah at this point. If she gets a deal, it will be for low six-figures, and they’ll send her some tabloid hack to ghost-write it and get it out quickly. There’s something else too – the reason why Spare was so powerful was because Harry has integrity and he owned up to his mistakes and he spilled some real tea. Sarah can’t do any of that because she would either lie or incriminate herself. And no, I don’t think Harry and Meghan are worried about a potential memoir from Sarah. I bet King Charles is worried though. Andrew as well.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
