There is a mixture of sympathy and horror here in Great Britain for the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, whose financial situation, in her own words, \u201cis under stress.\u201d\u00a0 She was caught on camera by an undercover reporter for the News of the World offering to sell access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, for \u00a3500,000, which would be approximately $750,000.\u00a0\u00a0 The reporter who did the sting posed as a businessman.<\/p>\n
Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has a lot of business connections.\u00a0 He is the UK\u2019s Special Representative for Trade and Investment.\u00a0 He travels the world meeting royalty, heads of state and businessmen, greasing the wheels for business deals to be done by British companies all over the world, and courting investment here.\u00a0 We followed Prince Andrew on one such trip to North Africa.\u00a0 His position as a member of the royal family does afford him incredible access, which he uses, not for his own enrichment, but to help British business.\u00a0 It is a job, from what we could tell from our contact with the Duke, he takes very seriously.<\/p>\n
So this scandal is about Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, trying to make money off the connections Prince Andrew makes.\u00a0 In the exchange filmed by the undercover reporter, Ferguson goes out of her way to explain that the Prince knew nothing of her plans.\u00a0 That he is totally clean and above board in his work at the UK\u2019s trade ambassador.\u00a0 And his spokespeople have insisted he was completely unaware of this.\u00a0 A lot of people will believe that here.\u00a0 But others will be skeptical, as Prince Andrew has been called \u201cAir Miles Andy\u201d in the past by the tabloid media here for his liberal use of air travel, which is not connected to this at all, but is one example of some of the bad press he has gotten here over the years.<\/p>\n
But for now, Ferguson is the one caught trying to cash in on royal connections, officially severed after her divorce from Prince Andrew, but still very real in terms of her close relationship to Prince Andrew.\u00a0\u00a0 She has been said to have commented that they are \u201cthe happiest divorced couple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ferguson and Prince Andrew still vacation together with their two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.\u00a0 And she lives on his royal estate, as she has had serious financial problems.<\/p>\n
And that is why she said she tried to cash in on connections.\u00a0 Despite the fact that she at one point had a lucrative contract with Weight Watchers and has taken on numerous projects and speaking engagements over the years, she has been in and out of debt.<\/p>\n
Said to be extremely generous with friends, she is also seen to live beyond her means.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sarah Ferguson has done a lot of work for charities.\u00a0\u00a0 Many here believe her heart is in the right place.\u00a0 But her judgment skills are not\u2014even the Duchess herself admitted \u201ca serious lapse in judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a mixture of sympathy and horror here in Great Britain for the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, whose financial situation, in her own words, \u201cis under stress.\u201d\u00a0 She was caught on camera by an undercover reporter for the News of the World offering to sell access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, for \u00a3500,000, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}