Prince Philip said 'enough is enough' after TOPLESS toe-sucking pics of Andrew's ex Sarah Ferguson leaked
Prince Philip only ever spoke badly about one of his children’s partners — and that was Prince Andrew's wife, Sarah Ferguson. The Duke of Edinburgh was said to have vowed never to end up being in the same room as Fergie, now ex-wife to Andrew, after scandalous photographs appeared in a newspaper in 1992 of Sarah topless and having her toes sucked by a lover in the South of France.
Gyles Brandreth, Philip’s official biographer confirmed the long-standing rumor to be true on Tuesday in a second excerpt from his book 'The Final Portrait', which is scheduled to be published later this month
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A toe-sucking scandal
Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew on July 23, 1986, at Westminster Abbey. The former Duchess of York, who is now a writer, film producer and television personality, was a fourth cousin to Lady Diana Spencer. Fergie and Andrew's relationships hit the rocks in a matter of years, with the announcing their separation on March 19, 1992. Andrew's constant traveling and the duchess' garnering of media attention, which invited strain from the royal family, may have been the reasons behind the rift, reports Metro.
But the incident that really stole the show was when Fergie was pictured holidaying with her financial adviser, in St Tropez in 1992, only months after her split from Andrew. John Bryan and she were staying at the Villa Le Mas de Pignerol in the hills above St Tropez on the Cote d’Azur in the South of France, where paparazzi photos of them sunbathing emerged, catching for the public the unfortunate moment when Bryan was seen sucking on Fergie’s toes. Photos of her sunbathing topless also came out from the same holiday.
Prince Philip regarded Sarah, Duchess of York, as 'simply beyond the pale'
— Amrita Bhinder (@amritabhinder) April 13, 2021
Decided after toe sucking picture he did not want anything more to do with her
via @MailOnline https://t.co/BtqbUjK9Ub
'Enough is enough
Brandreth said Philip had declared “enough is enough” after the pictures showed up in the press, which happened to be when Sarah was staying at the Queen’s Scottish country estate with the monarch and other members of the royal family. He reportedly told Brandreth that Fergie was “simply beyond the pale,” and decided not to have anything more to do with her.
“It was ridiculous. As soon as I came in through one door, he’d be falling over the corgis to get out of the other. It was very funny. Except, of course, it wasn’t," Fergie told Brandreth of Philip's putting his resolution to immediate action. Following the separation and subsequent divorce from Andrew, the Queen continued to receive Fergie. But Philip wouldn't hear of it.
'Truly bizarre'
“Of course I want to see him. I am the mother of his granddaughters, after all," Fergie, who has two daughters with Andrew, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice, said to Brandreth.
When the biographer raised this point with Philip, he had just shrugged and said: “But the children come and stay,” adding, “I am not vindictive, but I don’t see the point,” reported the Daily Beast. Describing Andrew and Fergie’s post-divorce arrangements, which saw them continue to share a home as “truly bizarre,” the Duke of Edinburgh added: “I don’t pretend to understand it.”
Blood-curdling scream
Philip and Fergie weren't always distant. They only became so after the split. But Brandreth writes that the two held diametrically opposite views on “bottling up" one's emotions, which the duchess believed to be positively harmful. He writes that when her two daughters were children she would tell them to stand in the middle of the extensive grounds of their home, Sunninghill Park, and scream their hearts out. When Fergie demonstrated, she caught Prince Philip by surprise as she let out a blood-curdling scream.
“The prospect of encountering his former daughter-in-law screaming in the middle of Sunninghill Park could have been one of the reasons the Duke of Edinburgh decided to give her a wide berth after her separation from Prince Andrew. He regarded reticence as a virtue and self-control as a quality to be admired," writes Brandreth. Philip had once told Brandreth he was in favor of “self-awareness” but was against “the endless introspection that seems to be so prevalent these days.” He did not sit down for the 2011 six-parter 'Finding Sarah' on the Oprah Winfrey Network, in which Fergie cried on screen with a TV psychiatrist, and said he regarded Harry and Meghan’s decision to do a similar interview as “madness,” according to a Daily Beast report.
The 13th setting
Fergie did try to repair relations with Philip but was constantly rebuffed, reported Brandeth. For her father-in-law's 80th birthday, she sent him “a handsome dinner service.” But fate seemed to be continuously conspiring against her. The biographer writes: “It was supposed to have 12 settings, but it arrived with 13: the ‘sample’ had been included with the set. With Sarah, somehow, something always goes wrong.”
Philip’s alleged vow to never be in the same room as Fergie was broken only when they both attended the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle in May, that of and Fergie's daughter Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank in October. Following speculation that Philip, then 80, would sit it out in favor of his feud with Fergie, he decided he couldn't miss the wedding, making the Duke of Edinburgh just like every other grandad who can’t say no to their granddaughters.