Related Articles
Royal author Andrew Lownie claims the Duchess of York’s spending habits have created a mounting challenge for staff as she prepares to downsize
With Christmas rapidly drawing near, many households are grappling with finding space for the daily deluge of deliveries. However, this challenge is particularly acute for Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, according to Royal author Andrew Lownie, as she faces downsizing from the expansive Royal Lodge.
Andrew has rubbished suggestions that Ms Ferguson is considering relocating to “a converted cattle shed on Princess Beatrice’s £3.5 million Cotswolds estate”, telling us: “Not sure Sarah herself knows where she is going. Switzerland, Portugal, Cotswolds, Windsor, London. For the moment she can stay at Royal Lodge until October.”
But wherever the former duchess ends up, staff are reportedly bewildered by the sheer scale of the moving operation ahead of them. Writing on his personal Substack, Lownie explains: “I wrote in Entitled that at Sunninghill Park, there was a warehouse style room nicknamed ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ which contained thousands of gifts.
“Similarly I’m told that there are so many unopened Amazon boxes at Royal Lodge that nobody knows quite what to do with them.”
This has presented an “extraordinary challenge”, he suggests.
The former Duchess’s lavish spending habits have been notorious for years. In his book, Entitled, Lownie documented that by 1995, she had accumulated debts totalling £3.7m.
A previous member of staff claimed to him that Sarah would organise sumptuous feasts for herself and her two daughters, with significant amounts of food being wasted. The former employee stated: “Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb and a chicken which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet that would make Henry VIII proud.
“But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have it cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it’s thrown away.”
Despite frequently complaining about her dwindling finances, Ms Ferguson reportedly lavished money on presents for friends, staff and associates.
In his book, Lownie reveals: “But still the spending went on – £14,000 in just one month with a particular London wine merchant.
“Over the previous year Sarah had travelled to Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Poland and made four trips to America, each time staying at the luxury Carlyle Hotel, where the cheapest suite was £330 a night.”
Lownie continues: “On a three-day visit to New York, she had one car to take her to the airport and another for her ten suitcases, all tissue-lined, with more outfits than she could hope to wear. Her assistant Christine Gallagher had once been sent on Concorde, at a cost of £5,000, to bring her some paperwork.”
John Bryan claimed that the extravagant duchess’s £860,000 yearly spending included £300,000 on staff, £150,000 on gifts, £50,000 on flowers, £50,000 on parties, £150,000 on travel and £100,000 on clothes – £25,000 of it spent in a single hour at prestigious New York department store Bloomingdales.
A representative for Sarah Ferguson was approached regarding this story, but chose not to comment.
Source link
