The Duchess of York wrote a grovelling apology to Jeffrey Epstein because he allegedly vowed to ruin her financially in court by arguing he was not a paedophile, The i Paper can reveal.
Allies of Sarah Ferguson are trying to limit the damage to her reputation from a leaked email in which she called the convicted sex offender her “supreme friend” and apologised for denouncing him.
They have tried to explain her fawning message to the millionaire financier by detailing the grounds on which he threatened to sue her for libel.
Epstein allegedly insisted that his conviction for procuring someone under 18 for prostitution, and complaints from girls as young as 14, did not conform to medical definitions of paedophilia, which referred to an attraction to younger, pre-pubescents.
But a legal expert believes that under English law Epstein would have had no chance of winning because he was a convicted child sex offender.
The revelation comes as Fergie, 65, is expected to lose lucrative book deals and other work after being dumped as patron or ambassador for seven charities and the furore over her private expression of friendship for Epstein, following his conviction.
There has been zero contact between the Palace and Fergie and her office in the past week, according to a well-placed source.
Inside the Royal Household there is thought to be exasperation that, despite courtiers’ best efforts to isolate the Yorks’ toxic image from those of working royals, the monarchy risks lasting reputational damage from the stream of lurid revelations about the couple’s friendship with Epstein.
The Royal Family has tried to distance itself from the disgraced Duchess, following the publication of several emails that contradicted her previous account of her friendship with the financier.
Epstein’s history of networking with rich and powerful people has already ended the careers of Prince Andrew, Lord Mandelson, and threatens those of others including the US President, Donald Trump.
The Duchess and her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, were a golden couple in the 1980s and early 90s – he was a national hero after serving in the Falklands and women once dyed their hair red to look like Fergie.
Millions of people around the world tuned in to watch the TV broadcast of their royal wedding in 1986.
The disgraced financier was found dead in a New York prison cell aged 66 in August 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
His alleged argument that he was not a paedophile would have almost certainly been rejected at any trial. It may still have been enough to intimidate some people into withdrawing allegations rather than face a costly court case, according to legal experts.
The NSPCC charity said that while not all child sex offenders were paedophiles, the traditional definition of paedophilia as an attraction to pre-pubescents was updated in 1992 to include early pubertal age. This is thought to mean young people who have reached recently puberty in recent years.
Mark Stephens, an expert in media law at the law firm Howard Kennedy, said Fergie might have worried about having to find as much as £1m for a court case that would pit her against Epstein in public, but he added that she had overdone her apology.
“[Using a medical definition] is a common tactic used by sex offenders,” he said. “She has given him a false vindication with such a fulsome apology.”
In July last year a Florida judge, Luis Delgado, described Epstein in a court order as “the most infamous paedophile in American history”.
And the family of Virginia Giuffre, the outspoken accuser of Epstein who recently died, praised charities’ “decisive action” by cutting ties to the Duchess of York.
Prince Andrew, Duke of York and the Duchess of York attend the funeral of Katharine, Duchess of Kent at Westminster Cathedral earlier this month (Photo: Mark Cuthbert/Getty)Latest twist in the scandal
The latest twist in the Epstein scandal has come after a week in which the King and his family received widespread praise for their role in helping to charm Donald Trump during a state visit at Windsor Castle.
Andrew stepped down from official royal duties in 2019 after a disastrous television interview defending his friendship with Epstein. The prince and his ex-wife remained friends with the financier after he had served 13 months of an 18-month jail sentence in Florida in 2009 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
square JENNIE BOND This is the end of Fergie – and not a moment too soon
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In 2010 Epstein lent Fergie money – she has since apologised for accepting £15,000 – to help pay off her debts but when it emerged a year later, she vowed to repay the cash and have nothing more to do with him, saying: “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgement on my behalf.”
However, it recently emerged that just over a month later in April 2011, she wrote to Epstein to apologise. “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. And I must humbly apologise to you and your heart for that.
“You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family,” she wrote, insisting she had been advised to condemn him publicly to avoid hurting herself and Andrew, and claimed she had never called him a paedophile.
Her spokesman James Henderson said that she wrote the apology to Epstein because he had vowed to sue her for defamation and destroy her in a chilling “Hannibal Lecter-style” phone call.
Palace officials fear further damaging details about the Yorks and Epstein will emerge from court cases in the US – and from new witnesses who have come forward following a new biography of the Yorks, by Andrew Lownie. “New evidence is coming to light all the time. There’s more to come,” the author claimed.
Fergie attends the Christmas Morning Service at Sandringham Church in 2023 (Photo: Samir Hussein/Getty)Fergie’s future
The Duchess, who has bounced back from numerous scandals previously, has heard nothing officially yet but is braced for the fallout to effectively end her deals with several book publishers, including Mills & Boon and New Frontier Publishing. The latter has delayed publication of her next children’s book, Flora & Fern, due to be released on 9 October but now supposedly delayed until 20 November.
The publishers have refused to comment but one senior industry insider predicted that Fergie’s writing career was over because of the controversy. They said it was standard practice for publishers to quietly drop risky authors who brought in modest revenue by postponing book launch dates and letting their contracts run out.
“I suspect they will postpone and postpone and just let it fade away,” the insider said. “It’s just not worth it… There isn’t enough money in it for them.”
It is unclear how important the Duchess’s income is to Andrew, who appears to have no regular source of earnings. There has been speculation that her loss of income might force them to move out of Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion they share in Windsor. But the Duke is thought to have inherited millions in a trust fund set up by his mother, the late Queen, and that may allow them to stay.
It has also been reported that Fergie has sold her £4.2m Belgravia townhouse, with speculation that the sale could help her and Andrew to stay at Royal Lodge.
His father Prince Philip banished Fergie from most royal gatherings after their 1996 divorce and supposedly could not bear to be in the same room as her. But Queen Elizabeth is thought to have kept up contact.
King Charles, who welcomed Fergie back into the fold at family gatherings after becoming monarch, has no desire to cut her and Andrew out of all private events.
But he is understood to want them to stay away from Sandringham at Christmas and avoid the cameras if they attend other gatherings, particularly after the pair appeared to embarrass the family at the Duchess of Kent’s funeral on September 16 by laughing and joking in front of the cameras.
Earlier this summer, King Charles III kisses the hand of Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, during day four of Royal Ascot in June 2025 (Photo: Karwai Tang/Getty)Charles is thought to have kept on good terms with the Yorks, despite cutting his financial support to Andrew. Unlike Harry and Meghan, the Yorks have never criticised the King publicly and friends insist they have never heard Andrew say a bad word about his brother, even in private.
However, the royal biographer Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, believes Andrew and Fergie will have to stay away from high-profile family gatherings such as Sandringham at Christmas, where the royals walk to church in front of the cameras. Last year they stayed away at Christmas amid controversy over Andrew’s links to an alleged Chinese spy.
“The King has always been weak about this, just as the (late) Queen was but they can’t go to Sandringham,” she said. “I don’t think the King will banish them but they will just realise that it’s not a good idea for them to go and they will volunteer to stay away.”
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