{"id":518517,"date":"2025-10-22T02:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518517\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T02:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T02:34:13","slug":"sarah-ferguson-drops-duchess-after-prince-andrew-gives-up-royal-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518517\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Ferguson drops \u2018Duchess\u2019 after Prince Andrew gives up royal titles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sarah Ferguson is officially a duchess no more \u2014 and she knows it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The ex-wife of Britain\u2019s Prince Andrew removed the royal moniker from her social media, days after Buckingham Palace announced her former spouse would be giving up his titles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fergie, as she\u2019s popularly known, has since changed her Twitter handle from \u201c@SarahTheDuchess\u201d to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sarahMFergie15\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:\u201c@sarahMFergie15.\u201d;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">\u201c@sarahMFergie15.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Even though the couple divorced in 1996, the London native had continued to use Duchess of York as a courtesy title throughout her professional pursuits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fergie\u2019s move comes after Andrew made the shocking announcement Friday that he would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royal.uk\/news-and-activity\/2025-10-17\/a-statement-by-prince-andrew\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:relinquish his royal titles;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">relinquish his royal titles<\/a>, including the Duke of York, amid ongoing allegations over his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIn discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,\u201d the 65-year-old said in the statement. \u201cI have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The second-youngest of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip\u2019s four children, Andrew previously announced in 2019 that he would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/11\/20\/world\/europe\/prince-andrew-quits-epstein.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:step back from public life;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">step back from public life<\/a> over his links to Epstein, despite his denials of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWith His Majesty\u2019s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,\u201d the embattled royal continued. \u201cAs I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Andrew\u2019s alleged connection to Epstein has recently returned to the headlines amid the release of abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre\u2019s posthumous memoir. In it, Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, maintains her claims that she was trafficked by Epstein and paid to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The prince has maintained his innocence, but settled a lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022, which included filing a statement in court in which he acknowledged Epstein \u201ctrafficked countless young girls\u201d and that Giuffre was \u201can established victim of abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ferguson, 66, recently faced blowback when her own close ties to the convicted sex offender came to light with a surfaced email in which she referred to Epstein as her \u201csteadfast, generous and supreme friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">She has subsequently been dropped from multiple charities for which she served as an ambassador or patron.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">_____<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Ferguson is officially a duchess no more \u2014 and she knows it. The ex-wife of Britain\u2019s Prince&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[2633,2204,2205,5105,7710,519,34841,448,7717],"class_list":{"0":"post-518517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-buckingham-palace","9":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","10":"tag-prince-andrew","11":"tag-royal","12":"tag-royal-families","13":"tag-royal-family","14":"tag-royal-titles","15":"tag-royals","16":"tag-sarah-ferguson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115415486563992554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}