Transcription
Her foibles included demanding that all her knickers, bras, and tights be ironed. And she had a particular intolerance for clothes not smelling right despite having been laundered. If they didn't have the right fabric conditioner sent, she would order everything to be washed again.
She also insisted that two hot water bottles be placed on her side of the king-size bed each night, ordering staff to measure the temperature of the water so as exactly to her liking. She had to have freshly squeezed orange juice on the menu every morning. And when she said freshly squeezed orange juice, she meant it. The oranges had to be squeezed just as she sat down. She could tell the difference if the juice had been prepared earlier and refused to touch it.
The book revealed the York spent £300 a week on vegetables at Weight Roast, while those growing in the kitchen garden were unused. According to one friend, the staff had to cook the couple's Jack Russell Bendix proper dinners, liver or sausages with gravy. Meanwhile, the Duke, confined to eating his meals alone in his study, when on leave and increasingly worried about the utility bills, would constantly be turning off the lights and the heating for his wife to defiantly turn them back on.
[Music] Hello, how are you? Welcome to my channel. My name is Cheer Denise. Well, if you're here, you know what we're doing. We're doing entitled. You've seen the thumbnail. You know what you're in for. So, I'm not going to waste a bunch of your time giving you all of the and then this happened and then this happened cuz you are invested, you know, but I will just remind you that the last episode was about those pictures of Sarah with her toe sucking lover. Remember, this guy was supposedly her financial adviser, but actually he's the guy that she's playing against Steve Wyatt and also Andrew. And as you'll recall, um, Fergie is super invested in not working a day in her life. She has zero concept about money and where money comes from. She doesn't seem to understand that you can't spend what you don't have. She's on very thin ice with the royal family. They're the ones who have been fighting her lifestyle thus far. I think the thing that's confusing to me is she's not doing anything to make these people like her any better. Yet, she's spending their money hand over fist. And I think the other thing that surprises me is the fact that not only is she interested in living, you know, these lavish lifestyles by going out on all these trips. Her personal life at home, she requires a cook, a butler, ladies in waiting, a dresser, nannies. And yet, who is going to pay for all this? She cannot stop telling people what financial straits she's in, acting like she's this poor single mom who's desperately trying to put food on the table. Yet her bill for staff is $32,000 a month. Okay, cut the staff then if finances are are are hard. But no, she's got to live the lifestyle. If she's adjacent to the royal family, if inevitably she and Andrew do a divorce, she's not giving up this lifestyle. Her daughters deserve this lifestyle. But her idea of the lifestyle, I mean, she's living higher off the hog than the queen herself. I don't know how she believes that she deserves to live so lavishly.
We're also going to talk today more about her tenuous relationship with the idea of charity. I have to tell you, she's downright evil. The way she has used these charities in the past to kind of be a cover for her personal projects and then she'd like claim to throw a couple dollars to charity so that you know she could get your buy-in that she was a good person. She scrapped that entirely. Now she's coming up with charities that ultimately pay her to use her name. You can't even believe this stuff. And I'm telling you, she's so crazy that there are a thousand different directions this author could have gone. And I mean, he's just trying to like stay the course and tell you what happened, but like he'll just throw you these crazy lines about how well, you know, she wanted to go to a documentary about Queen Victoria because she thought that she was the reincarnation of Queen Victoria and then she thought Beatrice was. And then we're just like off that subject. And I'm like, she thought what? I mean, I'm telling you, this woman is crazy. From top to bottom, she's nuts. And I just had zero idea how crazy she was. This is our third book by this author, and I have to say, this one is my favorite by far. And the other two were spectacular. Okay, let's keep going.
Previously, the Duchess had been seen as greedy and willful, and now she was regarded as a liar who had misrepresented her relationship with her financial adviser and an adulterous and unfit mother. The press turned on her with an Evening Standard editorial calling for her banishment from the royal family and withdrawal from any public money. In the same paper, Henry Porter wrote, "Throughout her marriage, she has seemed incapable of understanding anything larger than herself. Issues and interests beyond the perimeter of her personal gratification have been simply ignored or sniggeringly dismissed as convention." That is probably the most succinct description of who she is. Well done, Henry Porter, for boiling it down like that. That is so good. That is so true. She is incapable of understanding anything larger than herself. And she does always sniggeringly dismiss any kind of idea of thinking of others as convention. The Daily Star's front page roared, "Kick her out!" with a front page editorial. The British people are now fed up with the frolics of Fergie. It's one thing to be a troubled wife with marriage problems. It's another to act like a trollop. The Independent suggested the civil list be withdrawn from everybody but the Queen and Prince Charles and the royal family should pay tax. Her behavior was having repercussions for the wider monarchy.
Brian continued to deny through his lawyer any suggestions that our client has a sexual relationship with the Duchess of York. Then explain to me why her feet are in his mouth. What are you talking about? "I have to suck your big toes so I can finally make a decision on this one business agreement we had discussed in Paris." Anyway, his reputation fared a little better, especially after having failed to prevent publication of the pictures. He then sold a story on how they had been taken, and the Sunday Mirror later ran a Royal World exclusive, "My Love for Fergie," based on a phone call to his friend Whitney Tower. Daytime television suddenly became obsessed with the erogenous zones of the feet. Brian had achieved his dream of fame, and ironically, the media pressure had brought the couple closer together. It was now the two of them against the world. If anything, it seemed that rather than the palace most benefiting from the leak, it had been the Duchess's lover. Emboldened by the commercial response to the mere coup, the son published details of a tape which it had been sitting on for 2 years. The Princess Diana talking to a man declaring his love for her. The man turned out to be James Gilby. Attention switched to the Queen's other daughter-in-law. A Buckingham Palace plan to brief that the Duchess was suffering a nervous breakdown was overruled by the Queen, but Sarah realized something needed to be done. After seeing a doctor who recommended she join a self-help group, she contacted the group Analytic Practice in Paddington which specialized in how childhood trauma determined adult behavior. She decided to take herself in hand. Much like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, and just as Granny has promised, she explained, "I would find myself by serving others." If only, she was putting on weight and depressed. Alan Starky saw her wandering aimlessly around Remenda Lodge without makeup. Her eyes were tired, and she looked as though her soul had gone. A woman no longer quite in control, drinking and smoking too much. At night, she would down a handful of sizable vodkas, then take to the wine. Her cigarette butts littered the house despite her desperate attempts to give up. It was now open season on the Duchess, as the News of the World published a two-part series, "Fergie's Sizzling Secrets," based on interviews with friends and staff. It revealed that she called the Queen and Prince Philip Brenda and Straus, nicknames originally coined by the comedian Harry Enfield, and a private eye and her husband old lard farce or that boring old fart. And it shed light on her life at Sunninghill, where each evening staff would prepare up to 10 different types of pasta for her because weighed down with the cares of coping with royal life, she just could never make her mind up about what she wanted to eat. Her bills for food alone had escalated to £40,000 a year. She entertained up to 20 guests most weekends, showing off, according to one. She loved to be the center of attention, and as hostess, everyone had to listen to her and do what she said. In contrast, Andrew liked a quiet life at home and would spend hours in front of the TV watching golf videos. "You'd hardly ever see the Duke except for the occasional meal," said a house guest. "He obviously hated having any guests at all, but it kept her happy. Over the eight months I was with them, I watched Andrew grow more strained and unhappy, and worse, less confident in himself as the weeks wore him down," remembered Ron's lover, Leslie Player, who found him so low that I wanted to reach out and hug and console him. He spent the first Father's Day after the separation alone, while his wife and John Bryan, booked by the British embassy under the name Clark, went with Beatrice, a Eugenie, to Disneyland. On a private visit to the Palm Springs estate of the former US ambassador to the UK, Walter Annenberg, the diplomat's wife was appalled that the Duke holed up in his bedroom for 2 days, apparently watching porn. By now, Sarah was using a secret code with her closest friends to let them know that her relationship with Andrew was crumbling, said one. When things were getting very rough, she'd say, "The ranch is getting closer." A reference to her mother's flit to Argentina. Amid the various leaks to discredit Sarah in potential divorce proceedings, the family fought back with Susan Barrantes reflecting on her son-in-law Andrew in an interview to Italian magazine Che. "He's a good-looking boy and has a heart of gold to the point where he'd be without any money himself to help someone, but he just doesn't have any character. Absolutely none. If only he had character, perhaps his marriage would not have broken up." Uh, what is she comparing this to? Not Sarah's character. Surely not Sarah's character, you know. I mean, if Andrew had had all the character in the world, would that have saved the situation? Anyway, Susan continues. "Sarah will not accept easily to lose her children. And if she does, she's prepared to tell stories that are not very pleasant about the English crown." The battle lines were set. Fergie was determined to avoid the fate of her mother and sister Jane, who had both lost custody of their children when their marriages broke up. Her trump card was she, or John Bryan, could always sell a kiss-and-tell memoir. The threat was ever present, and the royal household knew it always would be.
That October, she set off for Germany to research a book on the travels of Queen Victoria, of whom she believed first she, and then Beatrice, was the reincarnation. With Bryan in hiding, she was accompanied by her business partner and friend Alan Starky and her dresser, Jane Andrews. Starky, who had served in military intelligence and worked as a social aide to President Reagan, was to become probably the most important chronicler of the Yorks during the late 1990s and another of her lovers. This woman just cannot be in a room with anybody without being like, "Let's go to bed." Even with Andrew away on duty on his minesweeper and out of the headlines, the pressure did not let up. That same month, another publication, "Sarah's Story: The Duchess Who Defied the Royal House of Windsor," by two experienced journalists Chris Hutchins and Peter Thompson, brought further embarrassment. Based on interviews with staff members, it provided more insight into daily life at Sunninghill and the requirements of the Duchess. Her foibles included demanding that all her knickers, bras, and tights be ironed, and she had a particular intolerance for clothes not smelling right despite having been laundered. If they didn't have the right fabric conditioner sent, she would order everything to be washed again. She also insisted that two hot water bottles be placed on her side of the king-size bed each night, ordering staff to measure the temperature of the water so it's exactly to her liking. She had to have freshly squeezed orange juice on the menu every morning. And when she said freshly squeezed orange juice, she meant it. The oranges had to be squeezed just as she sat down. She could tell the difference if the juice had been prepared earlier and refused to touch it. The book revealed the York spent £300 a week on vegetables at Weight Roast, while those growing in the kitchen garden were unused, and the freezer was packed with every variety of ice cream rarely touched. Instead, Sarah couldn't get enough of cheap old lemon cream puffs from Budgens. According to one friend, the staff had to cook the couple's Jack Russell Bendix proper dinners, liver or sausages with gravy. Meanwhile, the Duke, confined to eating his meals alone in his study, would on leave and increasingly worried about the utility bills, would constantly be turning off the lights and the heating for his wife to defiantly turn them back on.
What a nightmare. What is this waste of money? That's the thing I don't understand. Why are you spending $300 a month on vegetables when you have a kitchen garden for just such a purpose? So, all that food just rots on the vine. You got a gardener out there working the garden and it's like, well, here's some tomatoes, some zucchini, some broccoli, some cucumbers. Oh, well, we'll just go down the road and buy a bunch of vegetables that we don't really need. We we have organic vegetables right here, but why why why do that when we could send somebody to the store to buy exactly what we have out in the garden? I mean, it's just like the the the misuse of funds is really grating to my soul. And it's the small things like that that it's like, okay, she can justify the fact that, well, I need to fly first class because I'm a royal and I can't be bothered by people and, you know, I have to send my children to these really expensive schools and I have to have a wardrobe. But how do you justify spending money on food that you literally have growing for free out in the yard? What's that? I also don't understand the need to have her bras and her tights ironed, you know? I mean, even her underwear, that's pretty wild. What kind of underwear are you wearing? Like, how big is this underwear that you can even put the iron on it? But your tights, how are you going to iron that without creasing? I mean, wouldn't you get a weird crease? And how do you how do you iron tights and bras? How am I ironing my bra? I don't understand how a person would even go about that. My bra is not wrinkly. That's the other thing. I would be ironing it to get the wrinkles out, but it's not. Okay. Anyway, continuing on. Okay.
The charity dilemma. Dilemma is like not a strong enough word here. In November, the Duchess was ditched as president of Action Research after not a single appearance for the charity in a year. The same month, there was further controversy after a trip to Poland under the cover name Sandra Jones on behalf of Angels International when it emerged that ABC television had paid her business class fare and for her suite at the Marriott in Warsaw in return for being allowed to film her. Cynics questioned if the charity work was part of a deliberate rebranding to win public sympathy, help in the divorce settlement, and compete with Diana. Though one national newspaper felt there was no doubting her sincerity. After visiting the leukemia ward at the children's hospital, she returned deeply affected, determined to help, the beginning of an involvement in a charity which had been set up by Theo Ellert in a region with the highest infant mortality rate in Europe. It was a place of terrible want. Sarah later remembered the young patients had no blankets or sheets, no medicine or bandages, no toys or posters or the least bit of color in their life. They had nothing. Nothing. There were two makeshift incubators, and if a third baby needed one, that baby died. End of story. But a month after a major fundraising event, the organization withdrew, concerned it might get tarred by working too closely with her. In response, she set up Children in Crisis with Ellert and over the next three years would raise $7 million and set up the Mountain Haven Center, a recuperation facility for children with cancer or chronic respiratory ailments in a mountain village 90 mi south of KCKO.
Okay, can I let me just say this real quick? How bad was her reputation that you have a situation so dire that there's not enough incubators for the babies? So if a third baby is born, it dies because there's nowhere to put it. They don't have blankets. They don't have medicine. They don't have bandages at the children's hospital. And this charity would rather pull out and not be associated with Sarah than help with needs on that level. That Christmas 1992, the couple sent out joint Christmas cards and together hosted a Christmas party at Buckingham Palace, but were separated for Christmas Day itself in a pattern which was to continue for many years. Andrew with the girls at Sandringham and Sarah entertaining guests at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate. The Duchess then joined the rest of the royal family for a Boxing Day lunch at the Royal Shooting Lodge at Fletchham Hill. In one end-of-year opinion poll, she remained the most unpopular member of the royal family. While in York, the Friergate Museum removed her wax work from its collection, recycling it as Nell Gwyn. Having announced their separation, the Yorks perhaps understood that their royal luster had been tarnished. They carried on as if not much had changed.
By now a stranger in his own home, Andrew went back to sea in April 1993. Sarah was spending every other weekend in the picturesque fishing port of Kinsale in County Cork, or often up the road in Belgulli at a stud farm owned by Robert Splain, one of Ireland's leading international show jumpers, and his wife Eileen. Away from the press and calling herself Sally Metaf, the Duchess began to take part in the local gymkhana with a view to qualifying for the Mill Street International Horse Show. She decided to buy a top-class showjumper called Heather Blaze, aiming to represent Britain at the Olympics. But her hopes were dashed when the horse lost its footing at the water jump at the Dublin Horse Show, fell and shattered its left foreleg. There was nothing that could be done, and Heather Blaze was shot on the spot. The money for the purchase had come from one of Ferguson's benefactors, Clive Gerrard, founder of the Red Devil Energy Drink Company, who was literally supplying her with bags of cash as her bank increasingly prevented her from drawing money or paying checks. He admitted, "From a kudos point of view, there could be nothing better than being in business with a member of the royal family." The two also hatched a scheme to buy a villa in the south of France, where she would paint a mural in the foyer, then resell the house, sharing the profits.
This is what I'm telling you. Like what are these schemes? Let's buy a villa. I, Sarah, the Duchess of York, will paint a mural in the house and then since I touched a paintbrush that touched the wall, we'll like make bank and then let's divide it. Like what are these stupid schemes? Why don't you concentrate on your girls, on your failing relationship? Like there are things you could be doing right now, but this ain't one of them. Scheming with this Gerrard, the founder of the Red Devil Energy Company, on how you're going to paint a mural in some random house and resell for them. Let's split the profits. In July 1994, she accompanied Gerrard to see an empty private hospital called the Oaks Nursing Home in Essex, which a company closely associated with him, New Century Care Limited, then purchased. In December, the Colchester Catalyst issued a press release headed, "Duchess of York launches new nursing home enterprise with the boss of New Century," Paul Warren, stating, "Although the Duchess will have no financial involvement, she plans to be active in what she regards as very much her charity." Y'all, the reality was slightly different. In return for lending her name to a string of Duchess of York nursing homes, she would receive £1 per bed per night for each person in the homes. It was calculated that her income from the first year would be £30,000, rising to £20,000 within a few years. She withdrew from the venture a few months before Gerrard was declared bankrupt and jailed for two years for VAT fraud.
Can we just take that in? She decides that she's going to purchase a nursing home. This is her charity. She's very much involved. She's not financially involved, but she's very much involved. She really cares about the old people. She really cares about getting a pound a night per bed into her pocket. That's what she cares about. Oh, she cares about those old people. All right. She wants a lot of them in there. She needs every bed filled because every night needs to be a pound coming to her for every every old person that's in that place is going to be paying her a dollar. Who ever heard of the Duchess of York nursing homes? Who ever heard of putting their their name on a nursing home? Can you even fathom? If she doesn't plan on giving anything financially to these nursing homes, why is her name on the building? Oh, so she can grace the elderly with her presence. I mean, nobody needs some crazy person running up there vodka in hand and a paper bag over her head with the eyes cut out. I mean, nobody needs what she's bringing. If you're an old person, let them die in peace. The last thing they need is crazy ass Fergie running up in there. So, please no. You're not going to give your money, which is what they really need. We don't need your stanky presence. Okay. But she wasn't even doing that. She's literally taking money from the nursing home and that's her salary. She's doing no work. She's doing nothing. But she did lend her name, a name that she doesn't even deserve to have. A name that was given to her by the royal family. The the way that she is just using the the royal family is so shocking to me in this day and age where we saw them just come down like fire out of heaven on Harry and Megan for using the royal the royal name. I totally agree. I do not think the royal family's name or title should be used for personal benefit. The the royal family stance on on Harry and Megan is exactly how I think it should be. I am shocked at how much Fergie is getting done with her name and seeming to be able to do it with no actual repercussions. I know everyone's talking about her and she's getting torn up in the papers and stuff, but she's still doing it. She's still using their name. She's still plotting, planning, and scheming. And it's always around her name. Always around her Royal Highness, the Duchess of York. You know, all this. Still the plotting, still the planning, still the scheming.
To continue, the Duchess had increasingly been looking at charity work to rehabilitate her image and give her a stronger sense of purpose. In June 1993, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commission for Refugees to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Audrey Hepburn. Linda Lee Potter disparaged the appointment as bad for her, calling it an attempt to take the quick, easy route to a claim in popularity and enjoy herself at the same time. The columnist reminded male readers of the perks, the prestige, the difference that had come with being a member of the royal family, and doubted the Duchess would ever be able to relinquish the trappings. The backlash was immediate, as neither the palace nor Downing Street had been consulted, amid concerns about any embarrassment Sarah might cause. Her forthcoming trip to Croatia was cancelled on security grounds. The Duchess saw it differently. They had seen how Diana's trip to Zimbabwe had stolen Charles' thunder and propelled her to international superstar status and effectively out of their control. Some saw the same tactics being deployed against Sarah. Alan Starky believed travel provided the mental release that she sought. Getting on a plane and flying away from the source of her problems was by far the most effective way of restoring her equilibrium. Is it the way that she restores her equilibrium or does she just take her crazy antics to another place, another city, another country? She's still the one going. She's taken her problems with her. This is not a way to effectively solve problems. What kind of a dumb statement is that?
In October that year, Ferguson, a patron of McIntyre Care, a charity which helped disabled people lead independent lives, agreed to take part in a trek towards Everest. Oh, this story, you guys. This is really I I can't believe I neglected to mention this at the top of the hour. This is the story to stick around for. Traveling with a Herod's hamper to present as a prize, she accompanied seven climbers, six with learning difficulties and one with multiple sclerosis to climb the 19,000 ft Peldor Peak next to the world's highest mountain. The following year, the climb became an ITV documentary, "An Everest to Climb," which revealed that Sarah insisted on being called Ma'am, and her imperious behavior with the film crew had earned her the nickname Crisp. However, McIntyre's managing director, John Thorne, who accompanied her on the trek, had only praise for her. "She wanted to be actively involved," he said. The Duchess visited all McIntyre's projects, and her trip did not come at the cost of the charity. She also stayed in touch with some of the residents. She didn't seek publicity from her visits, though the charity sometimes did. I regarded her as a friend." I'm glad that's how John saw her, because this next move is really hard for me to square, and it's really hard for me to see this as coming from a full heart of love and affection for this individual. This does not seem altruistic at all.
As a consequence of the trip, the York household gained a new addition, her Himalayan sherpa, Pemba Gyaltsen, whom she called Yelten, and brought back to Britain on a six-month visa in February 1994. She bought him a new set of clothes, paid him $100 a week in return for odd jobs such as washing up and cleaning cars, and in spite of his poor English, answering the phone. She even took him to stay at the Carlyle Hotel in New York and he acted as a butler on a holiday in the south of France. Sarah paid for him to have driving and computing lessons to help him find work when he returned to Nepal. And he was later quoted as saying, "Fergie is like my god and mother. She has given me opportunities in life others can only dream about." But not surprisingly, her good intentions come to naught because it seems that there was not a happy outcome. In March 1998, he was traced to a 10-ft square room in Nepal with no running water or bathroom facilities. According to the Daily Mail, no one at the Duchess's office had any contact with him for over a year. Fergie probably had no inkling of the devastating effect her jolly experiment had on the naive young man round whom it centered. For Gyaltsen is now undoubtedly stuck in a no man's land between two sharply contrasting existences. Guelzen later worked as a truck driver and his employer Sheru Scott, wife of the mountaineer Douglas Scott, explained, "I honestly think he would have been happier if he had never gone." Interviewed by the paper, he looked away. "No, I don't want to speak about her."
The Duchess had thrown herself into her charity work, but she could not break the cycle of press criticism amid concerns about the boundaries between her charity work and her commercial activities and lifestyle. "One week she's created a UN envoy charged with revealing the plight of refugee children and the next she's flaunting her latest toy, a new £53,000 Jag," thundered the Mirror. Her charity work did however reap some benefits. In February 1994, the Express raised more than £500,000 for her charity, Children in Crisis. And the same month she was in Croatia on a joint mission between Children in Crisis and the Americas Foundation working with UNHCR delegation to bring blankets, baby food, and 600 teddy bears. From there, she flew to the US, combining a visit to the children's shelter and hospital with a champagne reception to meet businessmen contracted to market spin-offs from her children's books at the American International Toy Fair. Eight companies had already been signed up and she was reputed to have brought in £750,000 from merchandising income for the first six months of 1994. These included school bags, Easter eggs, foil balloons, a quartz clock, bath towels, drink flasks, cutlery sets, bubble bath, baseball cards, chocolate medals, wrapping paper, greeting cards, brooches, and socks.
But there were problems. In May, John Bryan was asked to attend a police station to answer allegations of false accounting and deception. He arrived in a chauffeur-driven limousine and spent several hours being questioned. He was cautioned after admitting dodging up to £500 in airport parking charges at Heathrow in April alone in a car registered to the Yorks' household. His solicitor claimed it had been a misunderstanding. But listen to this scheme he had. See, this is the kind of people that Sarah was hanging out with. In one month alone, he had managed to dodge £500 in parking lot fees. And this is how he would do it. The scam, which Bryan had proudly boasted about for years, meant he avoided paying for long stays. On return from a trip abroad, he would hire a car and go to the car park and using that ticket, drive out the original car, then come back hours later saying he had lost his ticket, but produce his hire documents for that day and be let out for the modest daily charge. So, how exactly is that a misunderstanding? It's not a misunderstanding. He completely understood what he was doing. That's why he was doing it. I mean, like these lawyers, I mean, I understand why some people have a real chip on their shoulder with lawyers because the things that they have managed to allow people to do. It's not a misunderstanding. That's not even like, well, you know, the lawyer changed the language that he was essentially telling the truth. It just, you know, he just twisted the language enough to make it sound one way, but you know, he didn't deny the reality. Yes, he did. It's not a misunderstanding. How can you misunderstand the way the parking service works to that extent? It's just sickness. But that's the kind of people that she was with. That's the kind of guy that she decided she was going to hook her star to. And it's that kind of scheming that she liked to be around cuz she was a schemer, too.
In June, Sarah was in New York hawking her memoirs around half a dozen publishers. The same month, she took legal action against her former butler, Tony Blackmore, who had sought to reveal details of the Duchess's private life, including her crush on the singer Michael Hutchins. A few months later, she and Bryan were trying to sell two ghostwritten novels for $5 million, hinting at veiled autobiographical elements, but the only offer was $400,000. Perhaps writing would now be her path to riches. Okay, we'll continue. But I just have to say this right now. Why is she allowed to do the things that she's doing? I I think I'm just really taken aback by how the strong arm of justice is not taking her out. By the strong arm of justice, I mean the Queen. The family seemed to work in in such lockstep in locking Harry and Megan down. And perhaps it's because all of this had happened. And I'm really really really understanding now. It had never been enormously clear to me, though I trusted why he said it, why Prince Charles was like, "We need to really close ranks and it's only a certain members, like the highest ranking members of the royal family that are going to get these perks and these benefits and things." And now I understand why. Now I understand why Meghan Markle is not allowed to say "Her Royal Highness" the way her counterpart Fergie was able to say it. I can understand now why it was like very clear to Harry. You either are with us or you're not with us. There's none of the There's none of this lifestyle where you get to have one foot in and one foot out. And for Harry and Megan to act like they didn't understand that when we had such a clear example that one generation before them of people who had used and abused their power is just unbelievable. You know who needs to read this book? Meghan Markle. Because if she was under some impression that the royal family had put the strong arm of justice against her because of the color of her skin. No, it's because a much paler person before you had decided that she was going to use and abuse the relationship she had with the royal family. Zero to do with the color of your skin and everything to do with the fact that they'd done this before with somebody else. So even if Meghan Markle wants to sit there in her, you know, holiness and say, "I would never. I would never." Well, it doesn't matter. Rules have to be made because somebody might, somebody once did. This is just shedding so much light for me personally on why why the royal family had to close ranks and be like, "It's only these series of people. These are the ones who can sit on the balcony. These are the ones who get the perks because otherwise all hell is breaking loose."
Let's talk about scandal, shall we? That's the title of this section. In the summer of 1994, Sarah rented Domaine de la Londe near Cannes for £20,000. Though it was dubbed self-catering, she was accompanied by a butler, two housekeepers, a dresser, general assistant, nanny, and of course, her sherpa friend Yelson, as she would say. Two Scotland Yard protection officers were there to protect the daughters. Her assistants Christine Gallagher and Jane Amler flew in and out. She partied with Pamela Stevenson and Billy Connelly, Andrew and Maline Lloyd Webber, The Edge from U2, journalists Nicholas Lloyd and Eve Pardey, Sir David Frost, Roger Moore, pop star Belinda Carlisle, and Robert Splain at an estimated cost of over £100,000. A truck from England had brought sun loungers and swimming pool toys for the children, and five extra telephone lines were installed, one at the pool. There was a daily delivery of wine, some costing £60 a bottle, which she would often open and then not drink. While she was there, the Duchess received a call from Amanda Lodge that the electricity company were threatening to cut her off over an unpaid bill for £1,400. She refused to sign the check before her departure, complaining, "I don't want to sign any checks. I'm just not interested. I'm just not interested in paying my bills, you guys. I'm just not interested. I'm just that into it, you know? It's just like, oh, yuck. Electricity bill. Gosh, not that. I am really busy right now. I'm getting ready to take a vacation. I'm just going to have to deal with this when I get back. Oh my gosh. Like, could you like could you kill the vibe anymore than you're doing right now? Pay that. Sign a check. Like, that can wait though. Like, I'm trying to have a good time and you're just you just come like in and you just have like all these like weird responsibilities. like read the room. I'm getting ready for a trip. Gosh." Even so, she talked to friends of buying the £1.7 million villa that she was renting, while also sending two members of staff to see if they could find a better bargain. Then explaining to her daughters that this house that they were going to be in, that this house they were vacationing in was going to be their new home for the holidays. "Girls, aren't you excited about that? Do you love it so much? I do, too. What do you think about coming here for the holidays all the time? Mommy's going to figure that out for us. Are you so excited? Do you love it so much?" She is delusional. And it's things like this that make me dislike her the most. It's like the affairs and all this. I mean, it's like I'm past the point of being shocked by that cuz I knew that was there. But it's this. It's these kinds of details. She's at a She's renting a $1.7 million home in the South of France that she could never afford. Not in a million years. But then she is literally over there telling her daughters, "Do you guys love it so much? Me, too. and mommy's going to buy it for you. We're going to start coming here for all of our holidays." Just giving her daughters these little bits of like fictional reality that they can never take to the bank. There's nothing I think more damaging to a child than having a dreamer for a parent who constantly tells them what will be, but it never happens. That is so destructive because that child just then begins to lose utter respect for the parent. Even if the parent had always been nice to them, they will always view that parent as just sort of this untrustworthy maybe benign person, but they'll never take that parent seriously. They'll lose all respect for that parent. There there's a complete lack of trust. And even if it wasn't like a big horrible lies, like we're going to we're going to take a trip to Disney World. We're all going to go and then like you never do it. You know, what do you guys think about taking a trip to Europe? Wouldn't that be fun? Like one of these days I'm going to do it, but you never do it. It's like is it the worst thing a parent could do? Hardly. But it's like you're you're setting your children up to believe that you as a parent have the potential to do it. You must want to do it. You're saying we're going to do it and then we just never do. Just so degrading to the relationship.
Now, this private excess cut against the concerted efforts over the past year to improve her public image, not least to work her passage back into the royal family to secure the links, which in the end gave her everything. She had taken on her old boss Neil Durrant Smith who had been put on the board of Children in Crisis and had, according to one paper, discreetly been arranging for geese public relations fixing private drinks in Knightsbridge hotels for the editors of national newspapers with the Duchess at which wide-eyed she'd beg for more understanding and also organizing safe TV interviews. It was Durrant Smith who set up the charity golf match at Wentworth in which the Duke and Duchess both appeared to be rekindling the relationship. He admitted, "Let's put it this way. Sarah and I are very close. We talk about a lot of things. I'm always close at hand if ever she needs me." But there were always scandals which threatened her attempts to rehabilitate her reputation. In the summer, Theo Ellard had been maneuvered out of Children in Crisis with Fergie not supporting her friend. Ellard took her revenge a few months later. At the end of January 1995, The Sunday Mirror ran a front page story, "Andy's a flop in bed," which led to law firm Mishcon de Reya seeking an order against Ellard, who had sold the piece through the publicist Max Clifford. She was quoted saying of the Duchess, "I think she felt she could never go to bed with him again, that their sex life had not been good from the beginning and couldn't be saved now. Brian, it was claimed, was much better in bed." The state of the Yorks' marriage continued to confuse the media with reports in the press of the Duchess telling dinner guests the couple still had sex. "He's like a machine, not very imaginative, but very, very thorough." And there continued to be disapproval of Sarah's mixing of her charitable and business interests.
In October 1994, she made a three-day trip to Kenya seeing sick children on behalf of McIntyre Care with the sponsors laying on a private plane, a Land Rover, and a £300 a night presidential suite at the Mount Kenya Safari Club in a country where many people's wages were £20 a week. In between her charitable work, she took time off to go on safari and play with turtles on a beach. If I had a charity, I would not employ people as the face of my charity if they couldn't do things like fly economy. If they couldn't stay in a regular hotel room, if they couldn't, you know, ride around in a regular car. If you need a private plane, a Land Rover, and £300 a night presidential suite, you're not the face for our charity. And that's that. I just would never ever waste my charity money to make this person feel like queen bee when why should they? We have real people with real problems over here we're trying to help. Every dollar has to go to that and you have to be willing if you join us to just live like they live for a little bit. The same month on a 6-day charity visit to America, she kept up promotion for Budgie. Remember that's her little children's book. and attempted to interest the Hollywood studio Columbia TriStar in adapting Heather Blaze, her story of talking horses. In November, she was in Australia playing off media outlets for the best interviews and reportedly in talks to make a guest appearance on Baywatch with Richard Branson. The following month, it was reported a plan for her to star in her own half-weekly show "Fergie's Gems" about exotic jewelry had been shelved. She expensed huge outlays on fortune tellers, gifts, and staff as she considered various money-making options. There were plans to develop a television series initially called "The Patch" and then "Sunny Dale Tales" based on a group of vegetables living on the same patch of land, but from different ethnic and social groups through the animation company Storm Group. Children's cartoon creator Jeffrey Hansen wrote to her that her idea appeared to be based on his own creation, "The Buddies," which he had discussed with Storm Group. His scripts were written by Brian Truman, who had adapted the Budgy stories for television. He received no reply.
Speaking to the National Press Club in Washington in December 1994, the Duchess claimed to be short of money. "I'm a separated mother of two, largely responsible for the finances of my family. I live in a rented house which is being whipped from under my feet. It really bugs me when I read that I'm a millionaire through my Budgy books. It's rubbish. Everybody lives in rented houses. All of the royal family live in leased houses." She knows what she's saying. She knows to the American ear where our highest estimation of having made it is that you own a home. That if she says I live in a rented house, that's really going to fall on your ears as some kind of crisis for her. Um, wake up. Every single member of the royal family lives in these great big houses, but it's all rented. It's all leased. Like, they don't own these places. And yeah, your lease might be like for 50 years or whatever, but it's it doesn't belong to you. And she knows what she's saying. 3 days later, the Sunday Express under the headline, "Is the Duchess of York as poor as she claims?" pointed out that a paper by city analysts Shaw and Company estimated her future earnings from Budgie over the next 5 years would be £2.8 million from merchandising alone. Some 58 companies had licensed rights attracted by its royal connections and blazed across all Budgy products was "Her Royal Highness The Duchess of York." Her private secretary also admitted that no percentage was now going to charities as previously promised.
There was further controversy that same month when during a 3-day visit to Portugal promoting AIDS awareness, she became the first member of the royal family to admit to having had an AIDS test. "I underwent two tests, one before getting married and one for a life insurance application 18 months ago." The press also seized on the fact that she'd originally told the journalist that she had had another test when she decided to start a family, which raised eyebrows given she was apparently in a monogamous marriage. She later claimed she had been misquoted. The newspaper, The Lisbon Daily, stood by the story, claiming to have taped the interview. One newspaper asked, "Was the need to be HIV tested driven by her own past or his?" Resurrecting stories about her husband's colorful love life and rumors that he was bisexual. Rumors had circulated for years with variations on Sarah finding her husband in a compromising position with another man. One national newspaper and ITV had investigated it for 6 months.
finding no evidence to support the claims. Though that did not prevent various scandal sheets running stories, including one from a maid who had worked at Buckingham Palace for 11 years, in which Sarah had returned one night to find the prince sprawled on a large couch with one of his Navy friends. The prince was wearing his underpants and a shirt. His companion was wearing nothing but socks. An argument had ensued with Sarah telling her husband, "Make up your mind. It's me or your bloody boyfriends, but you can't have both."
Eventually, Buckingham Palace put out a statement emphatically denying that the prince, who had become increasingly reclusive, had AIDS, and he joked he must be the only person to have put on weight with the disease. Boy, I wish we could keep going. I do have to do some other things today, so I can't. But let me just say right now, um, I don't think I've ever encountered a couple more repugnant people. I don't think I've ever seen anybody as selfish and self-centered and self-serving as Sarah Ferguson. And I'm starting to understand now why she was such a thorn in the side of the royal family because I know nobody is irredeemable, but she's coming pretty close to it.
The thing is is that I I would have a great deal of sympathy, and I do have a great deal of sympathy for somebody who is in a relationship where you're just being cheated on right, left, and center. Your husband has literally been with 12 other women within the first year of your marriage. I mean, how do you even go on? And if this business of her husband also being interested in men, which wouldn't necessarily surprise me, that would be another blow. You know, not only am I not good enough for you, I'm not even the right gender for you because looks to me like you're also into men. So I I I completely understand the pain and the coping mechanism that one would find themselves entertaining if you were looking for somebody to validate your existence when the person who said that they would love you and cherish you uh can't cheat on you fast enough. So I I do get that.
I don't want to seem like I'm just over here clutching my pearls. I can't believe it. I understand that people do wild things when they feel unloved, but I think that if it was her just acting out in that way, that'd be one thing, but it's her general disregard for everyone except herself that is so surprising to me. If if she had taken on a lover because she felt unloved, I feel like that's at least understandable. But this rampant spending of money, this always her hand out, always begging for more, always acting like she's this poor, you know, single mom who's really struggling to put a meal on the table. No, you aren't. You know, this this just the plotting, the planning, the scheming, the kind of people that she was hanging out with, this sense that she deserves everything she has and then some, you know, that that bugs me to my very core. And the way she uses charity, sickness, gross, you know, and I'm I'm like really struggling. There's so few stories about people being like, "Yeah, she was a really nice person. I thought she was genuine. No, she just cares about herself in a wild way.
So, you get Andrew who was really self-centered and, you know, a little when he was growing up. I mean, between the two of them, he seems like you almost feel sorry for him, you know? You you almost feel sorry for this reclusive guy who just like retreats into his golf games and his videos because being with her, I mean, can you imagine? It'd be traumatic. Both of them are terrible people, but I gotta tell you, I am just floored. And I think, like I said earlier, this might be one of his best books. Fabulous. All right, I'll see you guys tomorrow. And I am trying to get that Megan video out. I just I'm lacking the will, but I'll get it together. All right, I'll see you guys later. Bye.