At 63 years old, Sarah Ferguson has started her life from scratch. The Duchess of York underwent a single mastectomy earlier this year after being diagnosed with breast cancer and has since been recuperating at her home in Royal Lodge, Windsor, where she resides with her ex-husband and father of her children. daughters, Prince Andrew.
A few months that have served her for reflection and, as she commented in her last episode of the first series of her new podcast, Tea Talks, this harsh diagnosis and subsequent operation has helped her overcome years of self-hatred. for the constant comparisons with Princess Diana of Wales.
As the duchess reveals in the podcast, looking back she had realized that her physique was not as horrible as she thought, despite the fact that she never liked herself. “I think it was because they always compared me to Diana and I think in the end I believed what was said about me that, you know, I’ve never been very good,” she explained.
However, the fateful diagnosis just before the Coronation of King Carlos III had radically changed not only the way she saw life, but also how she felt about herself. After years of hatred, she assured that she “likes herself” just the way she is.
Her mastectomy came at a difficult time, with the Duchess having to undergo an eight-hour operation given the size of the affected area. However, seeing her in that situation led him to a deep reflection on her own life.
“Not for having seen death, but for waking up to stop worrying, hating ourselves, doubting, all those things. Stop not liking yourself,” he asked his listeners who might be going through a similar situation. . The mother of Prince Andrew’s daughters assured that she had needed to go through all that horror to realize: “In my case, it was necessary.”
Her body is different now, but she appreciates herself. “I have a huge scar, but I like it. I like it a lot. I just am what I am. Of course, the last thing the Queen [Elizabeth II, before her death] said to me was: ‘Be yourself, Sarah.’ “.
Now, the Duchess leads a more active lifestyle, exercising to stay in shape and eating healthy.
The Duchess of York met what would be King Charles III’s first wife when they were just teenagers, being friends -and distant cousins, since they are descendants of William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire- long before they were both part of the British royal family. What’s more, according to some information, it was precisely Diana of Wales who introduced Sarah Ferguson to Prince Andrew.
Sarah became Diana’s confidante when she was trying to adjust to her life in the palace, and she always had her as a reference: “I always felt safe imitating Diana,” she said in her memoir, My Story.
However, their relationship became complicated when the Duchess of York achieved the appreciation of the then British monarchs, something that Lady Di did not achieve. The Princess of Wales would even reveal that her friend “wooed everyone in this family and did very well”, leaving her as “trash”; even adding that today King Carlos III told him: “I would like you to be like Fergie, all happy.”
Ferguson said years later that when Lady Di stopped speaking to her in 1996 she had no idea why, but Diana is believed to have been unhappy with the way she was portrayed in her memoirs, which came out in November of that year. The princess died in August 1997, and the friends were never reconciled.
