She is one of the most written about members of the British royal family, having remained firmly in the limelight despite divorcing the Queen’s youngest son Prince Andrew in 1996 after 10 years of marriage.
Now Sarah Ferguson has opened up in what is perhaps her most honest and revealing interview to date, speaking candidly about her childhood, marriage, divorce and her own children Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
Sarah, Duchess of York, sat down with reporter Julia Fisher Farbman for US series Modern Hero and opened up about her “really difficult” marriage to “kind” Prince Andrew.
“He’s a total gentleman, he’s one of the kindest people ever,” she said. “Certainly the best thing I’ve ever done is marry him in 1986, my love for Andrew conquered everything.”
However things famously didn’t stay sweet for long as, in 1996, the pair went through a very public divorce, which Fergie credits with being due to the fact they barely saw each other, revealing that for seven years they spent a maximum of 40 days together.
“It was really, really difficult,” she added. “I think it just played into my abandonment. We both agreed that we didn’t fight hard enough to keep it together.
“It was rock bottom. I had completely and utterly destroyed myself, I murdered myself. I must have brought that on for myself, mustn’t I, because that’s how I felt about myself. Self hatred at its height. I lived in my ego for a very long time.”
Despite parting ways as a married couple more than two decades ago the pair still live together at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, with Fergie describing her former husband as her best friend.
She added: “It’s taken long, hard knocks and loads of mistakes and loads of spiritual work to break through my ego.
My children and the family [helped me] because they know me. Now our life together is the greatest ever. It’s so hard to comprehend because we’re not normal. This is our fairytale and we are telling it our way. I’m starting my life at 58.”
Fergie also discussed her daughters, Princess Beatrice, 30, and Princess Eugenie, 28, and revealed she has been “the mother she always wanted” after her own mother fell in love with a polo player and left her and her father behind to begin a new life in Argentina when Sarah was just 12.
She added: “Beatrice calls me the most misunderstood woman in the world. She is just the finest example of understanding and learning about how to deal with life challenges.
“Eugenie, she dares to be different. She dares to dream, dares to explore new ideas and new ventures.”