'I've met Sarah Ferguson - I always knew what was going to cause her downfall'
While the spotlight continues to shine on Prince Andrew after he announced he would be relinquishing his royal titles, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson has also come under immense scrutiny after the nature of her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was revealed. Fergie - who also renounced her title of the Duchess of York last week - has been linked to the late billionaire paedophile in recent months, when an email from 2011 resurfaced , in which she referred to Epstein as a “supreme friend” after he was convicted on sex abuse charges. The damning email to Epstein was sent just days after she publicly denounced him in the media. In the wake of the email being leaked, a representative for Fergie said she only sent that email after he “threatened to destroy her family” . The fallout from the email was devastating for Sarah, as she was dropped as patron for several charities. While Fergie has recoiled from any public appearances since the latest Epstein scandal with Prince Andrew and the loss of both of their titles, former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond believes that while Fergie was once a popular public figure, her actions are unlikely to be forgiven. She told the Mirror : “My impression of her has always been that she’s someone quite hard to dislike. Misguided, yes. Over-enthusiastic, yes. But someone, I thought, with a good heart. Now however we know that she lied about her friendship with Epstein and you do have to question what sort of person would do that. She says she can’t remember the meeting, but Epstein‘s emails suggest otherwise.” Jennie added that while the Epstein scandal proved to be the tipping point for Sarah’s reputation, the royal expert always thought her downfall would come from one thing. She said: “I’ve always thought her downfall was her hopeless grasp of money, combined with her desire to have more and more of it. She allowed her debts to spiral on a level few of us would understand." Despite decades of indiscretions, Fergie has long managed to claw her way back into the public’s favour, but Jennie believes there may be no such redemption for the former Duchess this time around. “Somehow she managed to come back, eventually, from the scandal of her topless toe sucking episode in the south of France, and – even more astonishingly – from her attempt to sell access to Andrew for half £1 million. But I don’t think there’s any way back from this,” Jennie said. “She has shamed herself beyond redemption.” As for the future, with Andrew and Fergie’s tenancy at the Royal Lodge under fire , Jennie believes the divorced couple may well retreat from the UK entirely, in order to escape the seemingly endless spate of controversies, and to help heal the reputation of the royal family . She said: “I think the pressure on Andrew and Sarah to quit Royal Lodge is now so intense that they will eventually leave. My hunch is that they will go into some kind of exile, possibly in Switzerland or the Middle East – where Andrew seems to have many friends, and live out the rest of their lives away from the UK.”