The former Duchess of York, who has been tracked down to a £2,000-a-night ski chalet in Austria, is said to be “living in fear” amid the fallout from the Epstein scandal
Sarah Ferguson fears returning to the UK after claiming she has been “abandoned” by the Royal Family, sources have revealed.
The former Duchess of York, who was stripped of her title alongside her ex-husband Andrew due to their closeness to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, has been in hiding for months following the King’s action last October. Fergie had not been seen in public since the christening of her one-year-old grand-daughter Athena at London’s St James’s Palace on December 12.
But now, she has been tracked down to a reported £2,000-a-night ski chalet in Austria as she attempted to move around the alpine village incognito.
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Mystery had surrounded her whereabouts ever since she was repeatedly named in a tranche of documents released by US investigators probing the late billionaire sex offender’s crimes.
A source close to the Yorks revealed that Fergie has not been contacted by any member of the Royal Family since she was unceremoniously stripped of the title she traded off for decades, despite being divorced from Andrew for 30 years.
One friend said: “Sarah is living in fear right now. She’s not immune to everything that is happening. She realises how serious everything is, and she is not coping with it.
“She is definitely worried about returning home to the UK and is relying on the kindness of friends to help her through the situation. But she knows she can’t keep moving around forever. Sarah feels she has been abandoned by the royal family and has been treated very unfairly. She is at a complete loss over what to do.
Fergie in February, checked herself into the most expensive wellness clinic in the world, as details about her close friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein ruined her.
The luxury Paracelsus Recovery Clinic in Zurich, which costs a staggering £13,000 a night, is understood to have been offered free of charge by the company, to which she had previously been an ambassador.
Other reports have placed her moving between wellness retreats in Europe, with unconfirmed stays in Switzerland, Ireland, and the Middle East. Sources suggested she has been offered to go and stay with her sister who lives in Australia.
Rumours in the publishing world have continued to gather pace that Fergie is also hoping to relaunch her shattered literary career with a tell all memoir, but she has demanded a fee of more than £1million. A source said: “One thing is for certain, she is desperately short of cash.”
It comes as the first pictures of Fergie since the release of the Epstein files have emerged and showed her looking stony-faced as she emerged from a blacked-out people carrier wearing glasses and a baseball cap, covering her trademark red hair.
Sources revealed she has managed to avoid the spotlight since her last public appearance at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral at Westminster Cathedral back in September by keeping a low profile high up in the Alps and rarely venturing outside.
Epstein has been the downfall of her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his titles by the King because of “serious lapses of judgment” over his friendship with the late paedophile.
Fergie also lost her courtesy royal divorcee title and reverted to her maiden name, and recently lost the freedom of the city of York, after councillors voted unanimously to remove the honour over her links to Epstein.
She and Andrew, who was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, were given the honour as a wedding present from York in 1987 during a visit to the city.
The Epstein scandal hit Fergie last September when it emerged that she wrote to the convicted sex offender, calling him a “supreme friend” despite publicly disowning him – prompting a string of charities to drop her as a patron.
Meanwhile, in documents released in January, Fergie appeared to say to Epstein in an email: “I am at your service. Just marry me.” In another email to Epstein, she made a crude comment about her daughter Eugenie’s love life and described him as the “brother I have always wished for” and even called the criminal a “legend”.
Another appears to show her begging the paedophile for a job as his house assistant, and it also emerged she appeared to take her daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie to visit him in Florida just days after he was released from prison in 2008.
It led to a US lawmaker writing to the former duchess, urging her to testify to Congress about Epstein. Congressman Suhas Subramanyam requested that she give evidence in a government investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking operations.
Subramanyam’s letter to her read: “The Committee is seeking information from anyone who has knowledge of Mr Epstein’s criminal operations, and reports and released Department of Justice files reveal your close personal and business ties with him.
“As the Committee seeks justice for the survivors of Mr Epstein’s criminal enterprise, and transparency for the American public, I respectfully request your cooperation with the Committee’s investigation.” As a non-US citizen, Ferguson, 66, is not compelled to appear before Congress or respond to the request.
