A royal bond that stole hearts came to an end after a surprise move.
A royal author shared her take on what went wrong between the two royal wives, who were once best friends.
Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson’s friendship ended after Andrew’s ex-wife published her autobiography, according to Andrew Lownie.
Diana, Prince William and Harry’s late mother, reportedly distanced herself over concerns Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie’s mother was undermining her reputation and selling stories.
In a new video released by Daily Mail on May 28, the historian and author summarized the arc of the relationship between the two women.
Diana and Ferguson, 66, were fourth cousins and childhood friends who married into the royal family just a few years apart.
The late princess was reportedly the one who introduced Ferguson to the former Prince Andrew.
Lownie claimed that the sisters-in-law fell out over Ferguson’s 1996 autobiography, My Story, “where she referred to catching a verruca [wart] from borrowing some shoes from Lady Diana.”
“In fact, the reality was that Diana was very concerned that Sarah Ferguson might sell stories about her and that relationship was never repaired, even though Sarah Ferguson pretended that she had,” he said.
Lownie, author of the bestselling biography 2025 Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of Yorkalleged that Ferguson was someone Diana turned to to vent her frustrations with life in the royal fold.
“There were some concerns Diana had that maybe Fergie was too loud and she kind of undermined Diana’s own reputation and she started to distance herself,” he said.
The author claimed that Diana also pulled a “tough trick” on Ferguson by saying they would both divorce their husbands, the future King Charles and then-Prince Andrew, at the same time.
Diana “left Sarah Ferguson to do it on her own and basically learned from how the royal family treated Sarah Ferguson about how she would handle the divorce herself.”
Ferguson and Andrew divorced in 1992 after a decade of marriage, but remained close in the years that followed. However, they continued to live together at Royal Lodge, the home they were evicted from in October 2025 in light of renewed scrutiny of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Diana and Charles, meanwhile, married in the “wedding of the century” in 1981, separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996. William and Harry’s mother died in a car accident in Paris the following year at the age of 36.
Ferguson, popularly known as Fergei, previously claimed that she and Diana uniquely supported each other during their heyday when they dominated the front page as the “Windsor Wives”.
