The Duchess of York is getting real.
Sarah Ferguson is on the new cover of Town & Country, and in the issue she opens up about everything from negative press attention and becoming a novelist.
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“When they say you’re the ‘Duchess of Pork’ or you’re ‘frumpy Fergie,’ you start believing it,” she says of the scrutiny from the press over the years, adding that her media attorney Paul Tweed recently told her, “I think you probably are the woman in the world who has had more bad front pages than any other.”
She adds, “I took it as a huge compliment. I’m really proud that I’m still here.”
Talking about how she’s grown over the years, Ferguson says, “It’s a very good moment because I’m free. She’s [Fergie] still with me, that person who thinks she’s fat, ugly, and disgusting, and she still has to have her hair done to talk to you but she’s now not so vocal. The truth is, I am 61 years old and I’m free of the self-sabotaging Sarah.”
Over the years, Ferguson was often compared negatively to Princess Diana, and looking back she says, “It was always that Diana was portrayed as the saint and I was portrayed as the sinner. Bad Fergie sold an awful lot of papers.”
She also says of not being invited to William and Kate’s wedding in 2011, “I didn’t think I was probably worthy to go to their wedding. I took myself to Thailand, actually, to be far away from it so that I could try and heal.”
Ferguson adds, though, “I believe that Diana would be so proud of her boys…and she’d be so proud of her grandchildren.”
The duchess also talks about her new novel, Her Heart for a Compass: “I have thrown my voice into each line and I’m very proud. Lady Margaret helped me become exactly the person who is talking to you right now.”
