It was often said that Prince Philip promised never to be in the same room as Sarah Ferguson, his son Andrew’s ex-wife, after photographs appeared in a topless Sarah diary in 1992 and her fingers sucked on a lover. from the south. of France.
Gyles Brandreth, the official biographer of Philip whose book The final portrait will be published later this month, has confirmed this long-standing rumor today in the second long excerpt of his book.
Philip, he said, stated that “enough was enough” after the images appeared. He told Brandreth that Fergie was “simply beyond clarity” and decided to have nothing to do with her.
At the time of the publication of the images, Sarah was staying at the Queen’s Scottish estate, Balmoral. Philip put his resolution into immediate action, as Ferguson herself reminded Brandreth, saying, “It was ridiculous. As soon as I walked in one door, he would fall on the corgis to get out of the other. very funny. Except, of course, it wasn’t. “
Although the queen continued to receive Fergie even after her separation and the subsequent divorce of Prince Andrew, Philip made it clear that he had no desire to see her ever again.
Sarah complained to Brandreth, “Of course I want to see him. After all, I am the mother of her granddaughters ”.
Brandreth said that when he raised it with Prince Philip, he just shrugged and said, “But the children come and stay,” and added, “I’m not vindictive, but I don’t see the point.” .
He described the post-divorce arrangements of Andrew and Sarah that have seen them continue to share the house as “really weird,” adding, “I don’t pretend to understand.”
Brandreth writes that Fergie and Philip had diametrically opposed opinions about “bottling your feelings,” which he believed were positively detrimental.
Brandreth writes that when her daughters were children, she told them to stand in the middle of the vast grounds of her home, Sunninghill Park, and shout.
Brandreth wrote that Sarah then proved it, catching him by surprise as he let out a cry of blood rennet.
He writes: “The possibility of meeting his ex-daughter-in-law screaming in the middle of Sunninghill Park could have been one of the reasons why the Duke of Edinburgh decided to give her a large bed after her separation from Prince Andrew. He regarded reluctance as a virtue and self-control as a quality to be admired.
Philip did not sit in all six parts of 2011 on the Oprah Winfrey network Finding Sarah, in which Fergie cried on screen with a television psychiatrist. He told Brandreth that he was in favor of “self-awareness,” but against “the infinite introspection that seems so prevalent these days.” It was reported Monday that he considered “crazy” Harry and Meghan’s decision to do a similar interview.
Fergie, according to Brandreth, tried to mend relations with Philip, but was constantly rejected.
For Philip’s 80th birthday, he sent her “a handsome dinner service.” But even here, fate conspired against her, Brandreth writes, “She was supposed to have 12 stages, but she arrived with 13: the ‘sample’ had been included with the set. something always goes wrong. “
Philip’s alleged vow to never be in the same room as Fergie was only broken when they both attended Prince Harry’s wedding at Windsor Castle in May 2018.