Fergie & Andrew: Disaster Royals And How They Ruined Royal Family - British Documentary

[Applause] it's a significant moment when your family marries into a new circle but becoming part of the house of windsor is an altogether different matter it must be an overwhelming sensation to know that you and your child are going to be forever associated with royalty what is it like to suddenly find your family intimately within the royal orbit is it a dream it was a total shock or a royal nightmare and i suppose enough outsiders have struggled to do well when they enter the royal family you ever have disagreements about things oh yes tonight when fergie met the monarchy it elevated her family to royalty for ron ferguson to have your daughter marry a prince become a duchess and to become a senior member of the royal family i mean it just doesn't get any better but two families coming together brings with it palace politics you're not only marrying royal in-laws but also all of the people working at the palace and you have to be pretty sophisticated in order to maneuver yourself throughout royal insiders reveal what was said behind closed doors charles apparently said look the problem with sarah is you just can't shut her up and when the ferguson's brought scandal to the house of windsor ronald ferguson was photographed entering a club for men and it offered massage and the rumor got around that the massage wasn't quite all they offered we discover what happened to the royals new relatives senior royals did rue the day that they had ever invited the ferguson family to join them and if there is any way back what it meant for fergie was expulsion from the royal family and she was on her own again [Music] the love affair between fergie and the monarchy began in the summer of 1985 at ascot as the royals prepared to return for dinner at windsor castle an unsuspecting prince andrew was about to be set up on a date prince andrew was in the navy he's still a bachelor and i think that the royal family were quite keen for him to settle down diana said to the queen you know i think it would be lovely if we could invite fergie she's a friend of mine she's about the same age as andrew both were good time gals and boys and the scene was set at windsor castle with a lot of booze they sat next to each other and they were flirting almost from the you know from plate of profito rolls and said don't worry i'll have some too and then didn't so i think she gave him a sort of playful slap and i think that was really the beginning of their relationship [Music] it was the start of a romance that would spark intense public interest in fergie's family she came from a very well-to-do family sarah's mother susan married ronald ferguson when she was only 18 years old and they had two children sarah who's called fergie and her sister jane and they bought this beautiful house glowwood very near ascot in in that very beautiful area full of rhododendrons and and trees and houses hidden behind big gates and that's where fergie grew up they always were aspirational i think they've had a feeling they were sort of almost minor aristocracy for sarah in the back of her mind she was always going to try to get a husband who was special and certainly rich even for the well-to-do ferguson's fergie's relationship with andrew was a tantalizing prospect ronald ferguson was absolutely thrilled and delighted 10 out of 10 for him she couldn't have done better marrying into into the royal family has to change things doesn't it because it's that final bit of icing on the cake but there are hurdles to clear for a royal bride to be not least a stern examination of the family tree thankfully when it came to the fergusons the windsors didn't have to look too far from their own some people like to say that sarah ferguson was middle class she wasn't no no oh my god to be thought of as a commoner my goodness no no they are very much upperclass english the ferguson family actually can trace their lineage back to the royal family so sarah ferguson and prince andrew are very very distantly related through charles ii but not that that is much of a course for concern for the wolf and in fact they probably encourage that it wasn't just shared distant relations that tied the ferguson's lenses but also their social circles ron ferguson fergie's father had mixed with members of the royal family for many years he'd been in a very smart cavalry regiment he'd ridden alongside the queen on the mall he played polo with prince philip and of course he managed the polo lifestyle of the prince of wales so they were a family that the windsors were familiar with because horses and polo was such a big part of her parents life fergie in fact met andrew when she was around three years old of course neither of them would have remembered on the side of the polo field so actually throughout her childhood and adolescence sarah had a lot of exposure to the aristocracy and to the royal family she was very much part of that crowd age of 13 her parents ronald and susan had separated sarah was at a pivotal age i mean those early teenage years it can really mess with your head when things at home aren't the way you want them to be and aren't the way you expect them to be she had this magical childhood and then suddenly it all sort of folded she talks about it herself how that's when she started to feel very insecure and inadequate and she blamed herself for the breakup of her parents marriage in 1975 sarah's mother susan left the uk to start a new life with a new man in argentina leaving sarah and her older sister jane to be brought up their father as sarah grew into adulthood ron ferguson's influence on her would be profound after sarah's mother ran off to argentina she became quite a daddy's girl i think she got a lot of strength from having her father solidly behind her and he was very good with her i mean she she approached everything full-throated full throttle went for it in very much the way that major ferguson as he then was would have done a exposure lived life at the charge if you like and so there's a sort of a resolution that she took that she was going to find mr right and settled down and the marriage would be for keeps with ron ferguson's sense of determination running through her fergie's pursuit of happiness had now led her to her dashing prince as their courtship blossomed it was soon time for andrew to take the relationship to the next daunting level [Music] sarah was invited to sandringham for uh a shooting weekend because the queen always believed that that the only way that her her children are going to ever get to know anyone is to entertain him in one of the royal homes well i think for sarah to meet the windsors is a hugely pressurizing point in her early relationship with andrew because here you are you're the outsider coming in you know that everybody's gaze is on you her own mother and father had been to sandringham for shooting weekends and obviously they had told her what to do so she was not completely um ignorant of her of how it was going to work but she was very nervous so i think she found herself in that situation feeling i don't know if they're going to like me i also want them to absolutely adore me and all that at once can be a pressure cooker situation for things to go monumentally wrong and i think sarah's case they kind of did when she walked into the double sitting room at sandringham she tripped over one of the queen's corgis and she spilled her drink and then in her fluster she just thought who are all these people so after that i wonder whether from sarah's point of view what she wanted to do was redouble her efforts to really please them and be the perfect person in their eyes despite less than royal first impressions fergie set about winning over the windsors by appealing to their interests she was someone who really threw herself into the pursuits that the royal family value for example she learned to drive four in hand you know garage driving the thing that prince philip at that time absolutely loved and she was pretty good at it and phillip thought this was extraordinary she had learned to ride at a very young age and her majesty loves horses and she liked to ride and the fact that sarah could accompany her on horseback was another huge plus after finding common ground fergie's outgoing nature began to charm the windsors i think with the royal family when they're in their personal time it is a very outdoorsy kind of life that they lead hunting shooting fishing and she was up for all of that so her larger-than-life boisterous up for anything personality very much did hurt to them so you know the stars were really aligning very quickly for andrew and fergie um because she had such a big impression on his family sarah had passed the sternest of royal tests her family were up to scratch and all that remained to unite the fergusons and the windsors was for the prince to pop the question andrew went down on one knee and he asked her to marry him she just burst out laughing [Music] by february 1986 sarah ferguson had been dating prince andrew for less than a year after a whirlwind romance and winning over the royals at sandringham fergie was whisked away to scotland where andy had an important question to ask her fergie and andrew went to spend the weekend with the duke of roxbury at floors castle as you do if you're a prince and during that time in that romantic setting he went down on one knee and he asked her to marry him and i think she was so surprised i i mean she just burst out laughing she thought was this all some big joke you know because she was felt she was so unprincess like she wasn't this perfect looking girl and she just couldn't believe it could quite happen to her she said of course of course she was just over the moon the fergusons when they realized that their daughter was engaged to prince andrew i mean they were you know they were ecstatic they thought this was the most marvelous thing absolutely thrilled on the 17th of march 1986 the announcement that ron ferguson had been waiting for finally came sarah ferguson and prince andrew were to be married remember what he said absolutely but i'm not telling you the epitome of the social ambitions of ron ferguson to have his daughter marrying the queen's favorite and second son i mean it put them front and center of british public life he went from being you know a landowner to being a member of the the house of windsor and he referred to himself as being a member of the royal family so you know the fergusons had arrived thousands of miles away in argentina fergie's mother susan was a little more restrained than her former husband in reaction to her daughter's impending nuptials how do you feel today i'm very happy very very pleased do you think that something might change in your life from today onwards no i don't see any change because she went to live in south america i think that susan sarah's mother didn't feel that the marriage would change things for her but it's a curious thing she was very wary although susan would have been very happy that sarah was marrying the royal family you know it brings a huge amount of scrutiny from the minute the news came out that they were going to marry fergie was besieged as every young royal bride is by photographers and press men all over the place you can't put a foot wrong both internally within the family and externally with the press and with the public with the wedding fast approaching and the spotlight firmly on the royal bride-to-be nothing fergie did would come noticed a girlfriend rang me and i remember i was still in bed and said you will not believe i've got the most amazing story [Music] sarah and other people at the headline including diana dressed up as police women and was supposed to set off for annabelle's nightclub where um andrew was having his stag night but before anyone knew it the real police arrived and still pulled these girls into the back of a police van at which point diana apparently pipes up said anyone got any um smokey bacon crisps and suddenly it dawns on these coppers who are hauling these girls off to some west end central police station that they got the princess of wales in the back and oh my god it's the it's sarah ferguson the royal bride-to-be obviously the girls were let out nothing happened but the the night was still young so fergian and diana decided to make their way to annabelles at that time annabelle's nightclub in barclay square was the most exclusive on the floor bottles of champagne were being fired in every direction i mean it was a bit of a riot what the girls then did as prince andrew was coming back from his stag do as he was about to enter buckingham palace they got the policeman to stop him getting in and prince andrew then started reversing back i mean this is one hendo i wish i'd been on let me tell you fergie's blowout as a commoner did not go unnoticed behind palace wars fergie found it so funny but sadly a few of the royals you know weren't laughing so much and they did get in quite a bit of trouble about it it was again that there might be a rather vulgar side of of sarah vulgarity is something the royal the royal family the house of windsor really don't like because it leads in all sorts of dangerous directions ron ferguson of course would have said well she's very much a chip off of her father's dog he loved mischief making and if it helped his daughter relax ahead of the big day then i think he'd have been a very much in favor of it on the 23rd of july 1986 the big day arrived with her father by her side all eyes were on fergie as she prepared to become the duchess of york fergie herself you know she was very nervous but she had a father at her side in the coach going to westminster abbey and he just made laughs and told her jokes all the way there it was huge you know andrew was fourth in line to the throne he was the favored son and so you know this had to go really really well the focus was also on the windsors and how they would accommodate fergie's fractured family the etiquette can be quite tricky when you've got uh extended families broken families i mean by this stage both sarah's mother and father had remarried uh she had harvesters half brothers um were they all going to be invited was it okay you know is divorce still a dirty word the royal family the other thing to remember is the fact that fergie's mother had married an argentinian that was obviously a discussion at the time it wasn't that many years since britain had been at war with argentina over the falkland islands so they're all these sort of minor diplomatic niggles in the background which could affect if you like sort of the long-term integration of these families going forward but things have moved on by this time in 1986 and both her mother's partner hector and ronald's new wife also called susan were invited and in fact actually her half brother and half sister from her father's new marriage uh they they acted as page boy and bridesmaids so it was very inclusive it was very um forward-thinking of the royal family to embrace them at that stage because it was relatively new at the time in the uk where you started having these you know more complicated family structures and very much in their interest in terms of the royal brand but the ferguson family warmly welcomed fergie relished the day that she finally became a royal i remember her saying to me you know the little girl that used to play tag with andrew was now marrying her prince and he was her prince she truly loved the man and she couldn't quite believe it you couldn't take that smile off her face it was almost uh sort of yeah i've done it you know here i am right up here marrying the queen's in full view of everybody i think there was a sense of triumph about her in many ways but also a sense that it's unbelievable isn't it it's me it's just me fergie [Music] [Applause] the day was just as exhilarating for juan ferguson as it was for his daughter major ron had been up half the night walking up and down the mall because everyone was partying there and he just wanted to drink in the atmosphere he was licking his lips at one point he was very much focused of of attention as well as sarah and his whole family were the focus of world attention and it's like this is the stamp this is the seal of approval for the ferguson he'd been part of royal circles for a long time but to have your daughter marry a prince become a duchess with all the grand ceremonial at westminster abbey and to be included in the royal family become a senior member of the royal family i mean it just doesn't get any better the union of the fergusons and the monarchy was now complete all that was left to seal a perfect day was for the royal couple to make the traditional balcony appearance in front of thousands of well-wishers at the end of the wedding that afternoon there was just a hint that all might not be well because they did a very strange thing they did this old business of kind of working the crowd up almost like they were a sort of musical entertainers you know they were the crowd recharging kiss kiss kiss and and sarah was sort of conducting and orchestrating this [Applause] i think there's a fine line between uh sort of exuberance and sort of being over the top and fergie straight too often into the over-the-top rounds uh she somehow just didn't know when to sort of throttle back the senior roles standing alongside there was an uncomfortable feeling about that again the word is it was slightly bolder so although the wedding itself was good there was a hint of trouble to come the honeymoon period was to be short-lived as the daggers would soon come out the third game charles apparently said look the problem with sarah is you just can't shut her up then her father brought shame on her royal in-laws ronald offered massage and the rumor got around that the massage wasn't quite all offered and the ferguson's royal dream quickly turned into a nightmare fergie knew she had to place her mother-in-law and the queen was absolutely furious sarah ferguson the horsey girl from hampshire was now her royal highness the duchess of york she had brought the ferguson family name into the royal spotlight and from the outside she be settling well into royal life but among her royal in-laws not everyone was a fan and was probably the only senior royal who right from the start was very wary of sarah i mean they she called her the outsider one of the problems for anne was that she was outranked by sarah and officially at least strictly according to protocol she should have curtsy to sarah and that was never going to happen what had at first seemed especially to charles to phillip this bright positive uh young thing coming in and sort of adding sparkle was just starting to to sort of leak away charles apparently said look the problem with sarah is you just can't shut her up she could be fun some of the time but just not all the time because it was giving them a headache the queen was the one person who you know remained steadfastly loyal and absolutely loved being in the company of her daughter-in-law far more than she liked being with diana fergie loved dogs fergie could ride fergie could do everything that diana couldn't do sarah's husband prince andrew returned to sea and fergie had to leave her old life as a ferguson and navigate the new world of the windsors by herself whenever you marry also marry the family to a certain extent but when you marry into the royal household it's a completely different level because all of a sudden you're not only marrying um into the in-laws but also all of the advisors the people working at the palace it's like a huge corporate structure there are different factions different agendas um and you have to be pretty sophisticated in order to maneuver yourself throughout i think she felt quite trapped by the grey men at the palace who didn't like her i mean the fact that the queen was her ally wasn't wasn't really enough because the queen didn't get involved in the in the my new time fergie's everyday life so she was under the control of the palace and they didn't like her they saw her as too extravagant too loud too flamboyant in a certain manner that wasn't sarah sarah was this huge bubbly personality people think that living in a palace wow how glorious being this princess she wasn't it was the reverse it was very bleak it was very lonely and there was no escape from it well both fergie and diana fell foul of the system so you know every 20 minutes you've got an appointment and you have to keep that appointment and you you can't be late and you've got to be dressed a certain way you've got to speak a certain way and you've got to deal with things a certain way and if you step outside of the system you're in trouble despite fergie's problems within the palace her place in the wings of family was strengthened when she gave birth to princess beatrice in august 1988 the fifth in line to the throne so after four and a half days the york family and now we can call them a family left the portland hospital but who does she look like is it her father or is it her mother house of windsor or house of ferguson well only you can decide that ferguson blood is now part of the royal lineage it kind of cements that relationship between the indoors in this case the fergusons and animals two years later another baby princess eugenie joined the york family and became sixth in line to the throne had given the windsors their first royal princesses since princess anne's birth her most significant champion the queen even came to visit the duchess in hospital but despite the monarch support sarah seemed to be losing allies within the royal circle even the british press who had once welcomed her with open arms began to criticize her behavior fergie and andrew first went to america they were in los angeles and i was there we i was part of the press crew there i would just remember they were at this very big conference and andrew was giving a speech and then fergie got up and gave a little speech sarah and i i know against advice wanted to make a speech which um you know the wives of royals wouldn't normally do it's it's breaking with protocol but she at insisted i have to turn to talk all these men around here i love you i'll see you later that phrase it was only a joke but it had us it had a sort of sexual connotation which is a complete no-no same sort of flattering headlines that she'd had up until you know in the early years of the marriage it was wrong and her father who stood up for her and in fact it was one of the the things that um upset her at the time was that the the monkey the institution were not defending her from these what she considered to be unfair attacks in the press um but her father did although the tide was beginning to turn against the duchess it was ironically her father major ferguson who first brought disgrace into sarah's new life as a windsor [Music] well in 1988 there was a huge scandal about ronald ferguson being photographed entering a club called the wigmore club now the wigmore club was a club for men and it offered massage and the rumor got around that the massage wasn't quite all they offered it was deeply embarrassing for ron ferguson because he was enjoying the um you know the reflected glory of being associated with the windsors and then all of a sudden he had his um his antics just splashed all over the front cover of all the tabloids and of course must have deeply embarrassed his daughter the fallout from this scandal of the wig war club was enormous because at the time uh ronald run the guards polo club and he had a very responsible job but this scandal really besmirched his name he issued a statement to clarify reports in this morning's newspapers in its major ferg said i have not been sacked and i have not resigned but i was not re-elected and was not prepared to accept the alternative position [Music] prince philip who was president of the club refused to help he kept asking to meet philip and his daughter's father-in-law and philip refused because of the associated kind of taint and it's just you become basically persona non grata and unfortunately you know look families we all fall out we all fall out we have tests and things like that but when you have a fall from grace like that within the royal family it takes a very very long time to be accepted back in and in some cases never fergie becomes guilty by association this is your father this is what he's done and she almost has to mop up after that particular scandal and redouble her efforts once again to get into the royal family's good graces sarah's loyalty to her own family had been tested by her father's scandal with her new husband prince andrew often at sea her loyalty to the windsors was now also tested fergie was a very and often when andrew came back from these long stints his main preoccupation was either golf or watching television because he was simply too tired to do anything else and and the marriage began to unravel with andrew away in the navy sarah's friendships with other men began to be scrutinized particularly she became close with american businessman steve wyatt [Music] fergie's new friendship was revealed in the newspapers when a cleaner found photos of them on holiday and the press began to ask questions about the york's marriage the stories claimed that the duchess traveled to morocco with mr wyatt and met for other holidays parties and private dinners a cleaner at mr wyatt's former flat is said to have found photographs of the couple together the prints have been returned to the duchess it wasn't an obvious example of definite proof of infidelity but you know it was pretty close typically the attitude towards extra marital affairs in the upper echelons of society the aristocracy the royal families um is that they're tolerated um but i think the sort of cardinal sin is when they are made public and when they are under public scrutiny it's really the damage that was caused as a consequence of the exposure that was the issue when the scandal broke and the queen was made aware of what was going on i think she did put her head in the sand a bit um i think you know the queen doesn't like moral confrontation and i think she always thinks well a little bit like her mother that if you ignore something it just might go away but the household are the ones that are responsible and they felt very very concerned about this the duchess was becoming tabloid fodder forcing the windsors to take action after a difficult christmas at sandringham in 1991 andrew and his family were called to a windsor family summit the summit early in 1992 was called by the queen's private secretary robert fellowes all the principal players as it were except sarah were there the queen prince philip charles um and so on and robert fellowes one of the closest the queen's closest advisers he laid out before them the situation that this broken relationship between sarah and andrew was becoming the the stuff of the tabloids something had to be done separation was was a huge step forward and on one which the queen must have been deeply saddened about but they clearly needed a break from each other because things were not happy but i think the the queen was as baffled as as the rest of us as to why he'd come to this sarah had to decide to either make the marriage work or move on in march the duke and duchess announced their separation the york's apparent separation future as a divorced duchess of york will take the royal family into unchartered waters i remember sitting with fergie having tea i think um and she was trying to describe she said i just i just couldn't be in that royal world anymore she was on her own again and um and who was there to to help her and pick up the pizza as well her father and the fergusons and they were really the only people she had who she could turn to the ferguson families union with the windsors seemed to be coming to an end but worse was in store for the ferguson name in march 1992 after just six years of marriage sarah officially separated from prince andrew any association with the ferguson family name was swiftly matched by the palace who now swung into action after the separation was announced all sarah's formal um appointments all the events that she was booked for they were all cancelled fergie's royal life stopped once you've stepped across a certain line you're cast into outer darkness and that's what happened to sarah the press speculated that fergie could re-enter the windsor fold by somehow repairing the marriage then rumors began to circulate of a new man in her life john bryan fergie was in a very distraught state so her friend of the moment who was her financial advisor supposedly john brown decided let's get away from it all i'll rent a villa in the south of france and fergie and i will go there with the children and the nanny and we'll just have a break but unfortunately for them photographers found them immediately unknown to fergie and john bryan they had been caught by the paparazzi sarah later flew to belmoral to stay with the royal family on their annual summer break the morning's newspaper all laid out on a side table in the breakfast room in balmoral and that morning's newspapers were filled with pictures of sarah ferguson she was caught lying in the sun with this guy apparently locking her toes i mean he claims as if it makes any difference he was kissing her toes anyway unbeknown to sarah the newspapers had got photo paparazzi had taken these pictures and newspapers got them these are the pictures that the queen and her son the duke of york will have seen at the breakfast table at balmoral this morning an intimate series of photos showing her daughter-in-law and his wife topless at the poolside in the south of france kissing a texan millionaire the queen's granddaughters fifth and sixth in line to the throne are pictured standing by watching self-confident sarah when she saw these pictures and apparently prince philip came into the breakfast room picked up one of the papers and just threw it in front of her and walked out fergie went up to see the queen because she knew she had to face the music and face her mother-in-law and the queen was absolutely furious apparently it was the queen's daughter-in-law it was so embarrassing fergie had shamed the ferguson and windsor names and left balmorals soon after duchess of york left balmoral castle today using a side entrance of the royal estate to drive to aberdeen airport her two daughters princess eugenie and princess beatrice were with her no longer the luxury or privilege of an aircraft of the queen's flight the duchess just an ordinary scheduled flight to heathrow after the um the toe sucking incident um the windsors they really want nothing to do with her famously sarah sent flowers to princess margaret who sent them back with a note saying you're an absolute disgrace to the family the windsors union with the fergusons seem to have run its course the major was subsequently let go as prince charles's polo manager a role he had held for 20 years the only member of the fergusons who seemed to remain in the windsor's good books was sarah's mother susan over 6 000 miles away in argentina fergie's mother actually surprisingly kept up a good relationship with prince charles and he in fact wrote a forward to a book that she wrote on polo sarah's father also wrote a candid and revealing book called the galloping major ron decides to publish his memoirs i think he had been so stung by what had happened to him i think he felt it was time he got his side of the story out so we got from this book uh his sense of dismay at how he'd been treated by philip when he'd lost the uh the guard's polo club and then his real sense of absolute bitter disappointment at prince charles who he counted as a as a close friend uh for the way that he was sort of dispatched from his job as his polo manager he just thought he'd been thrown to the wolves and he was extremely hurt after all his grandchildren were royal and so he was linked to them but you know so i think it was a very sad moment for him you know after years of loyalty that he he was completely thrown out once you're out out in the cold with the windsors you don't come back no fergie was out of the royal family and divorce proceedings began between her and prince andrew but as the mother of the fifth and sixth in line to the throne she still had to navigate the world of the windsors well basically after the breakup of the marriage the family sandessen with rage with her because he feels that she's let down the monkey which he has spent his entire life supporting i.e his wife the queen and in you know in a few years fergie had reduced the reputation of the monarchy to shreds in his mind and he was absolutely not going to put up with it and he said to the queen she is not coming here she's out i don't ever want to see her again in the wake of sarah's divorce from andrew the custody of the two windsor princesses became an issue the queen is being advised that a quick and clean divorce is now needed to protect the monarchy itself as the marriage of her second son falls so publicly apart the queen is reported to be determined that her grandchildren princess eugenie and princess beatrice should remain within the royal family even if the duchess decides to live abroad it was put forward as a serious suggestion by the house of windsor by the royal family largely because they feel they should be always in control that um they or rather andrew would have custody of the children and sarah would be not exactly pushed away but she would have visiting rights and i know at the time sarah's father was absolutely outraged and spoke to the press of his horror he outspokenly defended his daughter when there were suggestions in a newspaper that she may lose custody of her children as part of a divorce settlement i think it's absolutely monstrous and quite unbelievable that there should be these suggestions that she should i think it's hurtful it's uh desperately hurtful i think it's inhuman and cruel sam and andrew eventually agreed to co-parent their children but for the two royal princesses windsor family gatherings had to continue your children become the royals children and that meant christmas at sandringham with prince philip the queen and all the other members of the royal family the queen loved having her grandchildren around her but it did present a major dilemma for for fergie because fergie was not invited fergie would be offered the fires on the sandringham estate she would stay at wood farm and the children would go to the big house and be with their father and mother and they found this a little difficult to understand i think it was beatrice that said to her mother once aren't you good enough for them mommy i don't understand so it was all a little awkward and very sad ron of course found this quite monstrous the way that his daughter was treated he felt that the windsors had really been very cold in 2000 major ron lashes out at prince philip for not inviting sarah to christmas day lunch at sandringham and i think he shows great empathy for his daughter and great understanding that you know she's suffered enough don't you think let her back in at least for christmas dinner and i think that's why he he steps up with this enough sarah and andrew officially divorced in may 1996. fergie could retain the name duchess of york but was stripped of her royal highness title [Music] any support she could take from the ferguson clan also began to slip away in 1998 sarah loses her mother who dies in an accident and in 2003 she loses her father and her only sister lives in australia so we once again find her in that space where she's isolated lonely and cut off and grieving the closest family she had left in the uk were her daughters and her ex-husband prince andrew sarah had very publicly cuckolded andrew and yet andrew is very forgiving of her he continues to be there for her he helps her financially prince andrew inherits a royal lodge the queen mother's home in windsor great park he does it up at great expense and um fergie pretty much moves in with him and and continues to live there it was baffling to the royal family particularly to prince philip who could understand why she was still occupying a royal home and they were very very determined to make this one of the happiest divorces you could do and that's what they did as fergie's turbulent history with the windsors faded she was slowly and quietly admitted to the fringes of royal life but in 2010 she was in debt and made a reckless decision revealed in an explosive undercover expose 500 000 pounds but the businessman was a news of the world reporter and about to produce a forty thousand dollar don payment when the money arrives she looks as though she's crying the conversation then turns to details of the deal and then that isn't it then i then you open up all the channels whatever you need whatever you want and that's what then then you meet andrew and that's fine undercover reporter mahmoud dubbed the fake shake had posed as a businessman and lured sarah into a financial sting at the time andrew was the uk's trade envoy although there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the prince for fergie it looked even worse than the toe sucking pictures with john bryan that had effectively expelled her from the royal family it was considered to be particularly damaging because it was selling the royal brand for the highest bidder and when that news story came out it did damage the brand offer whimsy or coffee or a meeting you just you know show them the money i don't think the royal family could envisage a worse betrayal than someone selling access to them well i think probably the senior royals did rue the day that they had ever invited the ferguson family to join them the fake shake business was one of the low low points in in fergie's life it looked like fergie had really gone too far this time and had burnt her bridges with the windsors for good could there ever be a way back into royal life [Music] in the face of scandals affairs and divorce there were only two things that joined the windsor and the ferguson families together indefinitely their names were beatrice and eugenie the children are the glue between the fergusons and and the house of windsor and that glue is unbreakable having grown up in the shadow of their parents as young women they found themselves torn between the winters and fergie beatrice and usually by this time are are adults they're very conscious of their position within the royal family but they also have this relationship with their mother who is is such a pivotal part of their lives i'm here [Music] i see myself as a mini mommy so i kind of i kind of have this i kind of have this sort of image that anything you could do i want to do better so i have to tell you that's easy the product had two strong but very different families they would ultimately have to pave their own way [Music] their mother fergie was once again out in the cold sarah why did you put sandra's name to a further financial game her scandal with the fake shake was a step too far for the royals she needed to get away from the uk and flew to america to film a series called finding sarah where for a reported fee she publicly examined her behavior i can't get over the stupidity of me you know the first person who said it was my father-in-law for such a smart woman why does she behave in such an idiotic way we see a woman here who has hit rock bottom we find her at this time in this space trying really hard to make sense of what she's been through and looking at her journey from that little girl who went through her parents divorce to her own divorce to her own mishaps and trying to find redemption in making sense of her own life back in the uk andrew was making sure his second son and this and the spare not the heir has been very exercised with the role and with the standing of his two daughters the young women constantly had to walk the tightrope of being a ferguson with their mother and a windsor with their wider family it's almost a sort of split world the wild side of them can come out when when they're with sarah and it certainly does and then the restrained side they performed for the royal family the queen loved eugenie and beatrice they've done terribly well considering the hot water that their grandfather and their mother and father got themselves into this tug of war for the princesses reared its head in the most public of settings in 2011 the royal family came together to celebrate the wedding of prince william and kate middleton royal weddings are a chance for us to have a a window a peak a peep into the uh the windsor world it tells us who's in and who's out in 2011 fergie was plainly still very much out princesses beatrice and eugenie were invited along with their father but fergie was left firmly out in the cold i've always thought it's incredibly harsh actually for the girls to be invited to things like the wedding of william and catherine you know prominent role in that and their mother not to be there the wounds were still raw for the royal family and the split between the windsors and sarah ferguson seemed irreparable when she wasn't invited to kate and william's wedding it was extremely hurtful for her as she said to me you know she was the last girl to go down that aisle sarah felt a real knife in the heart that she couldn't be with her daughters that was a real nail in in the coffin for sarah but even the princess's appeal only went so far with the windsors andrew and brother charles had reportedly been at odds for years over the role of the princesses in the future of the royal family he wanted them to be treated as senior royals and they're not really he wanted all the trappings the money the protection that goes with that that role and he saw their future as being full-time working royals this is not how prince charles sees it he wants a slim down monarchy and he didn't want them being part of the the royal finances andrew's ambitions were not helped by his daughter's apparent appetite for the high life in 2015 despite working beatrice had been photographed on numerous foreign holidays people made a mission i suppose to find her in various parts of the world and she did take a lot of holidays and she was pictured it seemed every other week partying here or there skiing in verbier or maybe in ibiza at a party beatrice and eugenie's attitude to holidays and working life was famously parodied in the comedy the windsors oh just wanted to check a couple of points on the contract it says monday to oh and it says 30 days holiday a year as there are not messing up that there's almost that bias to see them from a much more negative lens your mum did that and that's why you're like that your dad behaves like that that's why you do that and so i think from their point of view sometimes it can feel incredibly unfair the princesses were now going to have to pay their own way in 2016 it was reported that prince charles turned on a written request to the queen from prince andrew he had asked that the princesses be funded by the sovereign grant there is a lot of tension now between charles and andrew andrew has always assumed that his daughters will be funded by the sovereign grant that they should be you know central to what the royal family does being real working royals and now they they're not going to be for fergie herself there was also a glimmer of hope after prince william's wedding queen started cautiously inviting sarah to some events she's occasionally invited to balmoral she's been to ask her i think the queen is mellowing in her old age i think very tentatively the queen is sort of saying okay look we're just gonna try this but if you put a foot wrong it will all stop again then in 2018 there was a thawing of relations prince andrew and his daughters were invited to the wedding of prince harry and meghan markle but so too was a new key guest when harry and megan married he made it very clear that fergie should be invited to the formal wedding harry was probably using the invitation as a sort of a reconciliation uh an olive branch who knew that um fergie was not popular with some members of the royal family but he wanted her there because she was important to him and to his childhood it was seen as a sign that maybe maybe she might eventually be forgiven the crowd were cheering and she just couldn't believe that they were all cheering for her they were shouting fergie sarah walks in with great assurance you'd think you know she might have crept in by a side door instead she comes in and almost says look at me i'm here i'm great and for once she felt welcomed fergie was back harry was not the only royal getting married that year princess eugenie had her self-found love and was due to marry jack brooksbank only months later it was to be a test of the status of andrew and sarah ferguson in the royal family princess eugenie's wedding to jack brooksbank was really the string that pulled fergie back onto the periphery of the royal family because she's mother of the bride um there's no way that she couldn't be invited and i think it was a uniting of of the family [Music] saint george's chapel in the heart of windsor castle was a fitting place for a wedding of a princess eugenie's marriage to jack brooksbank was to bring sarah ferguson face to face with the windsors not just as a mere guest but as a mother of a royal bride if there's any link positive link between the ferguson's it will be the two daughters so there's almost an inevitability about sarah being with members of the house of windsor because of that because of their children but while the queen had been cautiously warming towards fergie this didn't extend to her husband for many many years philip absolutely refused to have anything to do with fergie at all and if she walked into a room if she happened to walk into a room which was pretty rare he'd exit stage left immediately it was sarah ferguson who had walked down the aisle two years before who was the most nervous on the big day having not been part of the royal family for so long she didn't want to put her foot wrong she only just beat the bride to the door of saint george's chapel and she got out waving she was like on a brilliant form in the crowd there was a welcome reminder of the fergusons of days gone by she had spotted her mother's best friend who had come to see her on this momentous occasion suddenly there she is her daughter is getting married in george's chapel the church is full of her friends and she is um in the sort of number one uh mother of the bride position so it was immense social rehabilitation but as the guests gathered inside the chapel there was some nervousness around the arrival of a key royal guest there was a huge amount of speculation before usually his wedding about whether philip would finally give way and be in the same building as fergie he managed to make it to st george's chapel and took his place um in the ceremony not far from fergie it obviously marks some kind of thawing in the relationship perhaps when you get to that very great age that philip is at you start seeing things a little differently fergie had a qualified return to the fold as guest of honor in the heart of windsor castle for her daughter would always be a windsor but she was carrying with her a physical reminder that she would always be a ferguson sarah carried her mother's handbag and i think that was a little sign and a show of love and affection for her mother who sadly couldn't be there on the day she obviously you know was very sad that her own mother wasn't around as much for her growing up and she wanted to be there every step of the way for her girl [Applause] but within a year tacularly from grace [Music] in 2019 new details of andrew's long-term friendship with convicted pedophile jeffrey epstein emerged the epstein's scandal really seems to have tentacles of reach out and have enveloped andrew's family because well jeffrey epstein was a guest at princesses beatrice's 18th birthday party you know he's a family friend uh when fergie was in one of her many money troubles she turned to him for a loan so it's very intertwined really he decided to do this interview he'd only just told the queen he was going to do it um it was the wrong move do you regret the whole friendship with epstein now i still not for the reason being is that the the people that i met um and the opportunities that i was given to learn um either by him or because of him were actually very useful the thing is he didn't know what to do whether to do this interview or not he beatrice actually advised him to do this thought it would be best if andrew spoke openly as honestly as he could and from the heart but it just was a total disaster just the worst interview i think anyone has seen it was to be a scandal too far for the royal family and for the queen four days after he was interviewed by newsnite andrew gave up his royal duties there's no template here he can't stop being the queen's son he can't stop being a member of the royal family all he can do is no longer represent or work for that family the tables had turned after years of andrew standing firm in the face of fergie's scandals it was now his ex-wife he was supporting andrew as he found himself distanced from the windsors there's this huge loyalty which i think actually comes from you know fergie's side of the family this great loyalty that that their father uh instilled in them um you know it's it's a very strong trait in fergie and the two children [Music] 2020 was to be a new era for the family for fergie none of her family were any longer working royals she's carved out her own career she goes from project to project now and her latest project is his writing or co-writing a mills and boone romantic thriller sarah has taken to twitter to reach an audience for her debut novel promoting it in what looks like a home video follow your parts but do you dare lady margaret she loves to ride side she's strong she's rebellious she's courageous it's based on a long-distance ferguson family relative someone who wouldn't conform to society with with red hair i wonder who will attract the ayah of the royal family who she has really worked hard to go to get back and integrate herself in it may not only be in fiction that sarah ferguson is thinking about romance fergie and andrew's close relationship has fueled rumors that they could re-tie the knot will sarah and andrew marry again will they remarry never say never that's what i say i'd love it if they did i think the girls would love it whether they will or not is another thing but much water has passed under the bridge since the heady days of 1985. with the windsors even moments of reconciliation will never mask the fact that for fergie and andrew things will never be the same again i think andrew and fergie are the most married divorced couple that i know of but real marriage no not a chance in hell she doesn't want to get back into the straitjacket of royal life she wouldn't be accepted anyway there's no place for fergie as fergie prince andrew and the princesses look to the future the ferguson name may not hold the same power as it did i think now it's andrew and fergie really who are the royal outcasts i would suspect that the royal family are rather rather hoping that andrew and fergie will sort of quietly fade away without any more embarrassments one thing is for certain in royal circles fergie will never be forgotten fergie would never be free of the windsors the windsors were never going to be free of fergie however much some members of the royal family and maybe the establishment and maybe the grey men at the palace may want to permanently distance fergie from the monarchy it won't happen because those two royal princesses are the the bond between the fergusons and the royal family they really do bring the royal family together and that is thanks to sarah because she's been the most wonderful mother to these girls they will remain in the public eye they will remain a public interest and so that bond will never be seven [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] brought scandal to the house of windsor ronald ferguson was photographed entering a club for men and it offered massage and the rumor got around that the massage wasn't quite all they offered we discover what happened to the royals new relatives senior royals did rue the day that they had ever invited the ferguson family to join them and if there is any way back what it meant for fergie was expulsion from the royal family and she was on her own again [Music] the love affair between fergie and the monarchy began in the summer of 1985 at ascot as the royals prepared to return for dinner at windsor castle an unsuspecting prince andrew was about to be set up on a date prince andrew was in the navy he's still a bachelor and i think that the royal family were quite keen for him to settle down diana said to the queen you know i think it would be lovely if we could invite fergie she's a friend of mine she's about the same age as andrew both were good time gals and boys and the scene was set at windsor castle with a lot of booze [Music] they sat next to each other and they were flirting almost from

Channel: British Documentary 2

Views: 25,535

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Id: 3gN16I3v1vk

Length: 64min 42sec (3882 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 23 2021