Sarah Ferguson says Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding triggered ‘great regret’

Sarah Ferguson says Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding triggered ‘great regret’

Sarah Ferguson says Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding triggered ‘great regret’
It later emerged that the Duchess of York was glad she wasn’t invited to the 2011 nuptials

As the Royal Family goes, there’s no one more open and honest than Fergie – or the ‘Duchess of York’, if you’re a traditionalist.

The mother-of-two previously lifted the lid on one aspect of nephew Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton’s nuptials which prompted her to reflect on the woes within her own marriage.

Royal fans were elated when the Prince and Princess of Wales tied the knot in 2011 in a gorgeous Westminster Abbey ceremony after several years of dating.

Kate’s undeniable beauty and gentle kindness with strangers even won over some of the most hard-faced anti-royalists at the time, and as much, billions of people tuned in to watch the plush ceremony as it unfolded live.

One public figure that was surprisingly left off the huge-name guest list was Sarah Ferguson – despite having previously been married to William’s uncle, Prince Andrew, for 10 years.

Though Fergie, now 65, went on to tell Town and Country Magazine in 2021 that she ‘probably’ wasn’t ‘worthy’ of an invitation – despite her two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, being in attendance – it was later revealed that she was glad she never went.

In an interview recorded prior to William and Kate’s big day and released afterwards, the ex-royal admitted she saw a lot of herself in the incoming princess.

Appearing on US talk-show The Daily, Fergie recalled her own doomed marriage to Prince Andrew, having tied the knot on live TV in 1986.

“I was that bride and at 25 years old I went down the aisle of Westminster Abbey,” she said as she compared herself to Kate, claiming their wedding sparked ‘great soul searching on regret’.

“If I, being me now, could go back to that young girl when I was 24, I would say to her, ‘You know what? I will stick with you. I will stay with you. I’m with you…. You don’t need to run around trying to get everyone to love you. I love you, i.e. yourself, myself’,” she confessed.

“‘You’ve got me. Listen to me. I will guide you. Listen to your instincts Sarah and be aware of your behaviour and be aware of how lucky you are.’

The former couple met through the late Princess Diana a year prior to their own nuptials, after Fergie was invited by William’s mother to Windsor Castle during the 1985 Royal Ascot.

Andrew popped the question the following February, and the couple enjoyed a 10-year-long marriage.

In 1992, however, the pair separated, with Fergie pictured in a rather compromising position alongside US businessman John Bryan – and by compromising, we mean the paps caught them with her toe in his mouth…