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Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson Fought Like ‘Actresses on Opening Night,’ Claims Source

A new account suggests the two sisters-in-law competed fiercely for press attention and public approval.

Much before rivalries were measured by Instagram followers and fashion comparisons, two women inside the House of Windsor were already locked in a quieter contest, and it happened to play out through charity work, headlines, and public attention, which both of them wanted to hog for themselves. According to those who knew them, Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson began their time as royal sisters-in-law bound by friendship and familiarity, but gradually slipped into rivalry as the pressures of royal life and media scrutiny took hold. What started as mutual support, a friend of Ferguson claims, soon became a competition played out in full public view. 

Ferguson’s relationship with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was initially encouraged by Diana herself. The two women were already friends, and Diana played a key role in introducing her to Mountbatten-Windsor. When Ferguson married him in 1986, she was warmly received by the public, given her lively and informal image in contrast with the royal formalities.

At first, Diana and Fergusson were close. They shared humour and a sense of frustration with palace life, bonding, as royal biographer Andrew Lownie writes in Entitled: The Rise and Fall of The Yorks, “over their frustration with royal bureaucracy”. Lownie writes that Diana felt uneasy as Ferguson quickly formed an easy relationship with senior royals. “Diana envied Ferguson's more relaxed and closer relationship with the Queen and initially with the rest of the Royal Family thanks to her equine interests and talents and love of country pursuits,” he noted.  

Ferguson, meanwhile, saw the hierarchy differently. She believed Diana held the upper hand in public favour and press treatment, thinking Diana was “more popular and more stylish” and “was able to get away with behavior she could not.” And over time, the tension became rivalry. According to Lownie, Ferguson’s friend Allan Starkie believed the two women were locked in constant competition. “They were fighting an ongoing battle through the use of their charities and using the press as a weapon,” Starkie said, as reported by Marie Claire. 

The media rivalry was described as theatrical. “They would look like actresses on opening night at their reviews of their latest charity trips and compare them and whine if the other one got better views,” he added. Lownie also wrote that Diana and Ferguson “vied with each other for column inches in the media” and would sometimes go directly to journalists to “brief against each other.” Their rivalry also spilled into charitable work, an area where Diana became particularly protective.

One incident proved especially damaging. According to Lownie, citing author David Leigh, Diana and Ferguson “didn't speak for weeks” after the latter became involved in promoting an AIDS charity — an issue Diana regarded as deeply personal and central to her public work. 

In the end, Diana chose distance. Her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, later reflected that it was “a friendship that had outlived its usefulness.” As scandals surrounding Ferguson and Mountbatten-Windsor mounted, the friendship deteriorated further.