Representatives for Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, have denied reports that she is preparing to publish a tell-all memoir, telling People magazine there have been “no discussions” about any book deal.
“She is not writing a personal memoir,” the statement said.
The denial follows a report from The Sun in late September claiming Ferguson was “days away” from signing a lucrative book deal that would reportedly touch on her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Royal broadcaster Ian Pelham Turner told Fox News Digital that the claim was “strongly denied very quickly by her PR team,” though he suggested the episode might have been a deliberate move. “I think the reality was this might have been a strategy to actually gain more initiatives, but who knows? We will never know with the royal family itself,” he said, adding that Ferguson would likely be mindful of the fallout for her daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice, and for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Turner suggested that any such book would not have painted Mountbatten-Windsor favourably, noting Ferguson wasn’t “very well treated in the formative years of her marriage with Andrew” and may have felt “lonely” and “isolated.”
‘Persona non grata’
British royals expert Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital that Ferguson remains “already persona-non-grata in aristocratic circles” and would be wary of any move that could risk her daughters and grandchildren being further distanced from the royal family.
“Sarah should simply stick to anything unrelated to the royals, her fiction & anything else without any royal proximity. But simply refraining from such wouldn’t be rehabilitation or societal acceptance. Currently, she is persona non grata,” Fordwich said.
Fordwich said discretion was Ferguson’s best route back toward any relationship with her family. “The only hope she has of any future, indeed also any future with her own daughters and grandchildren, is to be discreet, which is not one of her strongest virtues, to say the least. But staying out of the UK for the last seven months was wise to at least let things die down. But despicable behavior will never be forgotten,” she said.
Fordwich added that a tell-all book might offer Ferguson a short-term financial fix but would likely cost her any relationship with her children, grandchildren and social circle.
Return to the UK
Ferguson spent seven months abroad before announcing her return to Britain in August. Fordwich described the decision to stay away as
