Sarah Ferguson has long cast herself as a woman whose great triumph in life was motherhood.
The former Duchess of York previously described herself as a ‘global mother’ and insisted that raising her two daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, was the one thing she got ‘100 per cent right’.
However, several sources have revealed they witnessed a very different story, claiming the mother-of-two’s parenting style in the spotlight was worlds away from what happened behind closed doors.
Some likened the mother-of-two’s maternal image more to careful choreography rather than hands-on devotion.
She would hold hands with her daughters in front of the cameras and in glossy magazine photoshoots, but when out of the public eye, Sarah would often pawn the girls off to a nanny when things got too difficult.
Visitors to the Yorks would say she struggled to control Beatrice and Eugenie’s sometimes ‘awful’ behaviour, and parents of Eugenie’s fellow pupils at Marlborough College were said to have hardly seen either Sarah or Andrew Mountbatten Windsor at school events.
In his book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the Yorks, royal author Andrew Lownie revealed new details of Fergie’s hot-and-cold temperament, which he chalked down to troubles in her childhood.
Sarah Ferguson out with daughters Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice and Norland Nanny, Alison Wardley
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie as bridesmaids for their former nanny
He said, while there was no denying her and Andrew’s ‘pride’ in raising their daughters, there were many accounts that Sarah’s favourable self-appraisal of her parenting style didn’t paint an accurate picture.
Fergie celebrated her own parenting skills in a 2011 interview with Harper’s Bazaar in which she proclaimed she was ‘the best mum I know’.
She said that being a good mother was the one thing in her life she had done ‘100 per cent right’ and that when people apparently often ask her about her ‘brand identity’ she answers that she is a ‘global mother’.
In the same year, the proud mum released her biography Finding Sarah, and listed her best qualities as being smart, special, unique, very sensitive, loving, caring and ‘sooo funny’, adding that motherhood was the best job she’s ever done.
Behind the smiles, Mr Lownie noted, staffers, security, acquaintances and royal observers saw a very different reality.
Protection officers reportedly noticed a shift in the girls’ behaviour around their mother, describing it as ‘awful’ at times, something seemingly exacerbated by the tense, chaotic energy she often brought into the room.
For the glamorous magazine spreads, some of which reportedly commanded six-figure fees, those who witnessed them insist the scenes were ‘completely staged from beginning to end’.
Nannies hovered just out of shot, ready to swoop in after each picture was taken.
At public events, Fergie would apparently clasp the girls’ hands for the waiting cameras, only to hand them straight back to their minder once safely out of sight.
The discrepancy between Fergie’s public claims of maternal devotion and her private absence was not lost on those around her.
Parents at Marlborough College were said to be quietly astonished at how rarely they ever saw the Yorks despite Eugenie studying there from 2003 to 2008.
The former Duchess at Planet Hollywood with Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie in 1993
Sarah seemed to be struggling with both girls in the car when they were outside Planet Hollywood
They said they assumed the former royals were always caught up travelling, working or just wanted to preserve their family’s privacy.
However, they did recall that the school’s parents would ‘talk about’ their notable absence and that they found Fergie’s 2007 Mother of the Year accolade from the American Cancer Society ‘rather odd’.
Mr Lownie suggests that Fergie’s intense fixation on motherhood stems from wounds in her own childhood, particularly the sense of abandonment she felt after her mother left her family to move to Argentina in the early seventies.
This, he argues, sits at the core of her personality and is behind her relentless need for approval, extravagance, and emotional volatility.
Those who worked closely with Fergie would have to navigate her fluctuating moods as she would go from charismatic and eager to please everyone around her to cantankerous and condescending in the blink of an eye.
TV personality Piers Morgan once described her as ‘absolutely exhausting company’, ricocheting between bursts of energy, fraught emotion and visible vulnerability.
Journalist Julia Llewellyn Smith observed two sharply divided sides: one moment a chilly, quick-tempered figure who bristled at the slightest challenge, the next a skittish, eager-to-please eccentric with the broad smile the public recognises. The ‘thin line’ between the two, she said, could be unnerving.
Nanny Alison Wardley helping Princess Eugenie onto A sledge while on holiday In Klosters with Fergie watching
The York’s former nanny Alison Wardley seen leaving The Portland Hospital with Princess Beatrice after going to visit her new sister in 1990
During a 60 Minutes interview in 2011, the Duchess reportedly stormed out after sharp words with Australian journalist Michael Usher, only to return moments later, acting as though nothing had happened, chatting about his children and offering signed books.
The late Ross Benson once wrote for the Daily Mail that she could be ‘warm and engaging’ one moment and ‘cold and imperious’ the next, demanding one-way loyalty and bristling if anyone questioned her behaviour.
Even her staff, according to those who have worked with her, struggled to navigate the pendulum swings.
Biographer Allan Starkie recounted how she would confide in staff as though they were close friends, only to snap angrily when she suddenly remembered they were employees.
During her divorce from Andrew, she earned the unflattering nickname ‘Fruitcake Fergie’ as stories circulated of erratic behaviour, strange therapies, and an apparent belief she heard voices.
But Mr Lownie’s portrait is not completely unkind, as he suggests the Duchess has spent much of her adult life searching for purpose and emotional support.
Sarah’s charitable work appears to have given her ‘spiritual fulfilment’, and those close to her don’t doubt her ‘genuine feeling for the deprived and vulnerable’.
Lownie suggests that Fergie’s intense fixation on motherhood stems from wounds in her own childhood, particularly the sense of abandonment she felt after her mother left her family to move to Argentina
The late Ross Benson once wrote for the Daily Mail that she (Fergie) could be ‘warm and engaging’ one moment and ‘cold and imperious’ the next
Friends and observers alike note that, despite her insecurities, she possesses genuine warmth and an ‘instinctive friendliness’ that can be deeply appealing.
Journalist Tina Brown, who has watched Fergie for decades, described her as a ‘sympathetic figure’ with ‘mad’ eyes, disastrous taste in men and business choices, but said she had an impressive ability to endure situations that could be seen as embarrassing.
She noted Sarah went into her stint as a Weight Watchers ambassador with good-natured stoicism despite her struggles with her body image and taking the gig as a necessity to pay the bills post-divorce.
While Fergie has always pushed the image of being the ultimate ‘global mother’, many around her believe the reality was far more complicated.
In recent years, her public role has shrunk even further as Andrew was stripped of his royal titles following his links to Jeffrey Epstein. And with the spotlight dimming on the Yorks, questions over how much of Fergie’s maternal image was real, and how much was performance, continue to linger.
