The King could also be compelled to ban the Yorks from non-public household events over their newest scandal involving convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Although Buckingham Palace has not issued any public remark, there was clear frustration in royal circles final night time over new revelations involving the publication of gushing emails from Sarah, Duchess of York, to the shamed financier following his launch from jail on baby intercourse offences.
In the correspondence she issued a grovelling apology to Epstein for publicly disassociating herself from ‘her supreme good friend’ when it emerged he had bailed her out financially, and claiming she had solely performed so to avoid wasting her profession as a kids’s writer.
The bombshell electronic mail reveals Sarah had written to the convicted intercourse offender to ‘humbly apologise’ in 2011 simply weeks after telling the press she had minimize all ties with him.
In an interview, the duchess stated her involvement with Epstein, who had served time for soliciting prostitution from a minor, had been a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.
A spokesperson for Sarah stated the e-mail was despatched to counter an aggressive menace Epstein had made to sue her for defamation.
As the ex-wife of a non-working royal, the King has no energy to manage what the Duchess of York says and does, both publicly or privately.
But the revelations as soon as once more shine an uncomfortable highlight on the Yorks’ proximity to the Royal Family.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York attend the funeral of Katharine, Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral on September 16, 2025
The King could also be compelled to ban the Yorks from non-public household events over their newest scandal involving convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein (pictured)
While Sarah was ‘persona non-grata’ whereas Prince Philip was alive, Queen Elizabeth did permit her to accompany her household to estates similar to Balmoral or Sandringham when he wasn’t round as a gesture of kindness in the direction of her younger granddaughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
The King additional took pity on her when she was identified with most cancers, permitting her to affix the household in Norfolk on Christmas Day, in addition to Windsor Castle at Easter.
But which will now need to cease, sources say.
A good friend of the duchess stated that she had ‘acted on recommendation’ when sending the grovelling electronic mail in an try to appease Epstein.
‘Epstein aggressively threatened to sue her. He was a nasty, disagreeable and really threatening man.
‘She acted on the recommendation she was given [in writing the emails] to try to get him to drop the menace, which he subsequently did,’ the good friend added.
‘She stands by what she stated a few years in the past. She deeply regrets any affiliation with him and abhors paedophilia. She has labored for a few years to help weak younger individuals.’
A spokesperson for the Duchess added: ‘The Duchess spoke of her remorse about her affiliation with Epstein a few years in the past, and as they’ve all the time been, her first ideas are together with his victims.
‘Like many individuals, she was taken in by his lies. As quickly as she was conscious of the extent of the allegations in opposition to him, she not solely minimize off contact however condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with paedophilia. She doesn’t resile from something she stated then.
Prince Andrew pictured heading to Windsor Castle immediately for a day stroll after the information broke of his ex-wife’s Epstein electronic mail bombshell
‘This electronic mail was despatched within the context of recommendation the Duchess was given to attempt to assuage Epstein and his threats,’ they added.
However, it’s clear that many will really feel her clarification somewhat impotent within the circumstances.
The Duke of York has already been compelled to relinquish all his public duties and places of work because of his affiliation with Epstein, and is barred from attending official royal occasions.
But each the late Queen and her son, King Charles, have had their fingers tied in stopping him from attending non-public household events, not least as a result of the Duke has all the time denied any wrongdoing.
In latest years the Duke and, now, his ex-wife, have even appeared with the Royal Family on their annual stroll to church at Sandringham on Christmas Day, in addition to Windsor Castle at Easter.
And there was public shock this week after they each appeared entrance and centre alongside senior royals at Westminster Cathedral on the funeral of the Duchess of Kent.
One supply has instructed the Mail that the King has tried ‘each avenue out there to him’ to ring-fence his brother.
This consists of reducing off all his non-public funding, withdrawing his safety and attempting to influence him to downsize from Royal Lodge, his 30-room mansion at Windsor, by providing him various lodging – similar to Harry and Meghan’s former house, Frogmore Cottage.
By doing this he hopes that it’ll reduce the present monetary stress on Andrew and make him much less prone to pursue harmful enterprise offers or relationships.
Prince Andrew smiling as he stands together with his left arm across the waist of a younger Virginia Roberts (now Virginia Giuffre) and Ghislaine Maxwell
However, Andrew has refused to budge, claiming he has a ‘forged iron’ lease on his house and that he can afford his monetary tasks, main to what’s successfully a battle of attrition between the brothers.
One clearly annoyed supply stated: ‘There is actually no extra the king can do to chop off help [to the duke].’
Andrew has additionally continued to attended household gatherings ‘via the entrance door’, with none obvious concern for the continuing embarrassment he’s inflicting.
Last week it emerged that US investigators could have entry to a harmful ‘cache’ of emails written by the duke to Epstein, that might show much more ‘explosive’ than these pertaining to his ex-wife.
Some insiders consider Charles will now don’t have any possibility however to discover methods to forestall his brother attending household occasions in a personal capability too – or not less than if does, achieve this in a much less conspicuous method, via the again door.
‘It is concerning the final sanction he could possibly take,’ a supply stated, mentioning that there’s a ‘actual worry’ there could also be extra of this to return.
A bombshell electronic mail obtained by The Mail on Sunday revealed how the Duchess of York cynically lied when she pledged to chop ties with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Just weeks after publicly disowning the vile billionaire, Sarah Ferguson wrote him a gushing non-public message calling him a ‘steadfast, beneficiant and supreme good friend’ – and admitting she solely distanced herself from him to avoid wasting her personal status.
The bombshell emails despatched by Fergie to Jeffrey Epstein – regardless of vowing simply weeks earlier than to by no means contact him once more throughout a newspaper interview
The Duchess ‘humbly apologised’ to the convicted intercourse offender for letting him down, and stated she had been instructed to talk out if she wished to avoid wasting her profession as a kids’s writer.
‘Sometimes the center speaks higher than the phrases. You have my coronary heart. With a number of love, pricey Jeffrey.’
The Duchess adopted a equally appreciative tone in her electronic mail of April 26, 2011, apologising for disowning him – whereas additionally attempting to reassure him that she had by no means described him as a paedophile.
She instructed him she had been instructed to provide the interview to guard ‘my profession as a kids’s e book writer and kids’s philanthropist’ including that she was ‘damaged’ as a result of ‘I noticed all my kids’s work disappearing’.
Pleading with the kid abuser, she added: ‘I do know you are feeling hellaciously let down by me from what you had been both instructed or learn and I have to humbly apologise to you and your coronary heart for that.’
The extraordinary electronic mail will ship shock waves via the Royal Family and can gas requires King Charles and Prince William to utterly ostracise the disgraced Yorks.
It comes simply days after the Duke and Duchess launched an ill-judged return to the general public limelight with a distinguished, and extensively criticised, look on the funeral of the Duchess of Kent.
Royal writer Andrew Lownie stated final night time: ‘The language of this extraordinary electronic mail is totally two-faced.
On March 7, 2011, in an interview splashed on the entrance web page of the Evening Standard, the Duchess made a ‘heartfelt apology’ for accepting Epstein’s money
‘It is massively damaging to her credibility as a patron of youngsters’s charities and kids’s writer.
She despatched the grovelling message ‘from the reality of my coronary heart’, lower than two months after telling journalists: ‘I’ll by no means have something to do with [Epstein] once more.’
Those feedback got here on March 7, 2011, amid mounting stress over the hyperlinks she and ex-husband Prince Andrew needed to the paedophile – and the £15,000 bailout he gave her.
In an interview within the London Evening Standard with its then Editor, Geordie Greig, she stated that accepting Epstein’s cash was ‘a big error of judgment… I’m simply so contrite I can’t say’.
Another electronic mail obtained by this newspaper, which the Duchess despatched on January 22, 2011 – is addressed to ‘my pricey, pricey good friend Jeffrey’ and seems to thank him for his latest assist with the massive money owed she had racked up after years of lavish spending.
She wrote: ‘How can I thanks sufficient? You are a good friend certainly and I’ll at some point give it to you again. But I cannot have the phrases to thanks now.
‘I’ve learnt to query every thing the Duchess of York says in interviews. I feel the broader Royal Family shall be appalled by this – it is but extra reputational harm.’
Last night time a spokesman for the Duchess stated that Epstein had threatened to sue her for defamation after her Evening Standard interview and she or he had been suggested to try to ‘assuage’ him.
She stands by her public condemnation of the paedophile, the spokesman added.
A bombshell electronic mail obtained by The Mail on Sunday has revealed how the Duchess of York cynically lied when she pledged to chop ties with paedophile Jeffrey EpsteinÂ
Today’s astonishing revelations come after Lord Mandelson was fired as British Ambassador to Washington after a string of embarrassing emails between himself and Epstein – who was discovered useless in his jail cell in August 2019 – had been launched.
The emails between the billionaire and the Duchess had been exchanged after he was launched from a Florida jail in July 2009, having served 13 months of an 18 month sentence for soliciting prostitution from ladies as younger as 14.
Just underneath 18 months later, in December 2010, Epstein agreed to pay £15,000 owed in unpaid wages and different payments to Sarah’s former private assistant, Johnny O’Sullivan.
The deal, orchestrated by Prince Andrew, allowed a wider restructuring of the Duchess’s money owed, which had been approaching £5million.
Details of Epstein’s beneficiant help had been uncovered by the media in March 2011, inflicting embarrassment to the Royal Family.
On March 7, 2011, within the interview with Mr Greig splashed on the entrance web page of the Evening Standard, the duchess made a ‘heartfelt apology’ for accepting Epstein’s money.
In feedback that made headlines around the globe, she stated: ‘I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply remorse that Jeffrey Epstein turned concerned in any means with me.
‘I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of youngsters and know that this was a big error of judgment on my behalf. I’m simply so contrite I can’t say.
‘Whenever I can, I’ll repay the cash and don’t have anything ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever once more.’
Castigating her former good friend, she added: ‘What he did was improper and for which he was rightly jailed.’
And, in obvious exasperation, she pledged to chop off all contact with him. ‘I’ll by no means have something to do with him once more. I deeply remorse it. How many extra instances would you like me to underline that?’
The beleagured couple attended the funeral of Katharine, Duchess of Kent, earlier this month
But weeks later Sarah was privately disavowing her feedback within the determined electronic mail to Epstein revealed immediately.
Writing to her benefactor on April 26, she stated: ‘You have all the time been a steadfast, beneficiant and supreme good friend to me and my household.
‘As you understand, I didn’t, completely not, say the ‘P phrase’ [paedophile] about you however perceive it was reported that I did.
‘However, I’m apologising to you immediately for not replying to your electronic mail or reaching out to you when the tabloids had been so horrendous.’
She angrily condemned the media, who she stated ‘used me to harm you past realms’, and complained that the controversy over her hyperlinks to him ‘was the worst nightmare for me’.
Despite emphatically telling the Evening Standard that she would by no means have something to do with Epstein once more, she apologised for not contacting him sooner, saying: ‘It is not like me’.
Justifying her lack of contact, she stated: ‘I used to be suggested, in no unsure phrases, to don’t have anything to do with you and to not converse or electronic mail you and if I did I might trigger extra issues to you, the Duke and myself.
Fergie has been my good friend, however her lies are unforgiveable
Daphne Barak (left) with Sarah Ferguson
I first met Sarah Ferguson again in 1992 as her marriage to Prince Andrew was breaking down.
Sarah had agreed to take a seat down with me for her first tv interview after infamous photos caught her sucking the toes – or showing to – of Texan monetary adviser John Bryan.
The media protection on the time was overwhelming and hard for anybody to take care of. But I appreciated Sarah, who was heat, bubbly and, it appeared to me, a drive of nature.
We ran into one another now and again after that but it surely was solely previously few years that we reconnected.
By then, her former husband, Prince, Andrew, had been disgraced due to his personal affiliation with convicted intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein – and stripped of his royal titles. Sarah discovered herself in a lonely place, attempting to guard the daddy of her kids and his broken status.
There was one thing else, too: Sarah had breast most cancers and we spent hours on the cellphone speaking about it day-after-day – months earlier than she revealed the information to the general public.
I can thank Sarah for pushing me to get my very own mammogram, a call which introduced an early prognosis and would possibly effectively have saved my life. Today, I’m cancer-free.
So, when, previously few days, I established that Sarah has been untruthful about her contacts with Epstein, it got here as an important private shock. And it left me asking why.
I consider issues began to unravel following her formal divorce from Andrew in 1996 which, though beneficiant by regular requirements, left Sarah struggling to take care of her life-style.
She developed the behavior of befriending rich – however typically questionable – people and that behavior has endured.
I do know Sarah has a bumpy journey. The most cancers prognosis and far else apart from have been devastating.
But somebody aspiring to have – and to take care of – Royal standing should dwell by larger requirements. Sarah has let herself down.
Who can consider her now? Where can she go from this? It laborious to not consider the implications shall be critical.
Daphne Barak, interviewer and documentary makerÂ
‘I used to be damaged and misplaced. I shut down and ran away. So please perceive, as I do about you, that I used to be damaged and never the sturdy individual you understand and I bought utterly obliterated and I noticed all my kids’s work disappearing.
‘I did not need to harm Andrew yet one more time.’
She instructed Epstein ‘we’re, and have each been, within the firing line’ including that that they had ‘each [been] blamed for stuff we’ve got not performed.’
And, in maybe essentially the most jaw-dropping passage, she recommended that she had been instructed to provide the interview as a part of a technique to guard her writing profession and charity work.
‘I used to be instructed to behave with the utmost velocity if I might have any probability of holding on to my profession as a kids’s e book writer and a kids’s philanthropist.’
She stated she ought to have taken his recommendation earlier than giving the interview ‘and brought a day or two to think about the ramifications of my actions however I used to be in overriding worry.’
In an emotional sign-off, she wrote: ‘In the meantime, I write this from the reality of my coronary heart.’
Last night time, a spokesman for the Duchess stated: ‘The Duchess spoke of her remorse about her affiliation with Epstein a few years in the past, and as they’ve all the time been, her first ideas are together with his victims.
‘Like many individuals, she was taken in by his lies.
‘As quickly as she was conscious of the extent of the allegations in opposition to him, she not solely minimize off contact however condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with paedophilia.
‘She doesn’t resile from something she stated then.
‘This electronic mail was despatched within the context of recommendation the Duchess was given to attempt to assuage Epstein and his threats.’
Biographer Andrew Lownie nevertheless, stated the revelation may result in publishers and charities severing their ties with the Duchess.
Best recognized for her Budgie the Helicopter, Little Red and Helping Hand collection, Sarah Ferguson has printed greater than 50 kids and younger grownup books.
In November, she is because of publish Kindness Along The Way, the second e book in her new collection of Flora & Fen image books.
She introduced the primary e book of the collection final yr with a submit on Instagram wherein she seemed to be standing on the balcony of a luxurious Alpine chalet or lodge.
Meanwhile – 14 years after her grovelling electronic mail to Epstein – the Duchess additionally stays closely concerned in kids’s charity work.
She chairs Sarah’s Trust, which brings all her charitable causes collectively, and which says it has supported 1.4 million kids around the globe.
Last yr she launched the Youth Impact Council, which she stated would ‘carry collectively future leaders’ and ‘amplify the voices’ of Gen Z individuals within the office.
Along along with her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, the Duchess can also be an honorary patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust.
The bombshell electronic mail comes simply days after the Duke and Duchess of York had been accused of creating an ill-judged look on the funeral of the Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral.
The scandal-hit pair, each 65, had been seen chuckling collectively and awkwardly making an attempt to interact different Royals, together with the King and Prince William, in dialog.
William was later stated to be livid at his uncle’s ‘ambush’.
Andrew has lengthy been tarnished by his associations with Epstein, particularly the infamous 2001 {photograph} of him together with his arm round 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre, who accused the billionaire of trafficking her.
Sarah Ferguson is believed to have first met Epstein within the Nineteen Nineties having been launched by American British businesswoman Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the widow of banking tycoon Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, as soon as one among Britain’s richest males.
In a sworn statement printed final month, Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite jailed for 20 years for intercourse trafficking, described the Duchess as a ‘frenemy’ who lusted after Epstein.
‘She [the Duchess of York] had a factor for him… and I believed that Sarah was attempting to place the strikes on Jeffrey,’ she stated.
Daphne Barak is a famend interviewer and documentary movie maker, whose topics have included Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Johnny Depp and Michael Jackson amongst many others.
Daphne can also be a most cancers survivor. She has a fast-growing charity with the University of California, San Diego. www.gamechanger.org
