Sarah Ferguson Gets Advice from ‘Real Housewives’ Star Amid Epstein Fallout: ‘It’s Not Pretty’
Drawing from her own scandals and comeback, the reality star shares hard-earned survival advice as the Epstein shadow circles the York family once again.
There's something about a public scandal that reduces very different lives into the same space. Titles, social standing, even geography, fade when one sees another undergo a fate they have lived through. This explains why an unlikely voice has entered the conversation surrounding Sarah Ferguson's fall from grace – reality star Luann de Lesseps.
De Lesseps, a former countess and longtime star of The Real Housewives of New York City, is no stranger to reinvention after a collapse. And now, as renewed attention swirls around Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, de Lesseps is extending a surprisingly measured hand of solidarity toward Ferguson, the former Duchess of York. In her estimation, survival in the public eye follows the same emotional rules, whether the fall happens at a Manhattan penthouse or inside Palace gates.
Speaking to Fox News Digital ahead of a new run of holiday cabaret performances, de Lesseps framed Ferguson's current moment as something far more personal and punishing, and not merely tabloid drama. "I feel for her, and I feel for the daughters as well. It's a very hard thing to go through… and it's hold your head high because there's going to be talk, there's going to be, it's not pretty," she said. Her sympathy hit the nail when it came to the centre of the betrayal. Blaming Ferguson’s former husband, she added, "I mean, and [Mountbatten Windsor] was not honest about it. And I think to have the man that was in your life, the father of your children, not be honest about something like that, is very painful."
Mountbatten Windsor has faced accusations of sexual abuse relating to his decades-long friendship with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Ferguson, who divorced Mountbatten Windsor in 1996 but has remained very publicly, and reportedly privately, close to him, denounced Epstein after the initial wave of allegations against him in 2011.
De Lesseps views the emotional fallout as extending past spouses to children and family identity itself. “And I think they're going through a major crisis in their lives, and it's really about holding your head high and knowing that it's not their fault,” she said of Ferguson and her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. “What happened with Andrew is not their fault. I mean, this is all happening behind their backs.”
Her empathy comes from lived experience. "I can relate because I had a cheating scandal in my life," she said. "And so it's difficult to go through, especially in the public eye… It's hard to hold your head high during a crisis, but you have to." For de Lesseps, scandal isn't just humiliation, it's a form of grief. "It's like a death in a certain way. It's a grieving process," she explained. "So it takes time to get to the point where you can laugh about it. But I think until you get there, you can't blame it on yourself. It's really not your fault. It's his fault… It's a journey."
