{"id":552931,"date":"2025-11-06T13:05:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/552931\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T13:05:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T13:05:42","slug":"sarah-fergusons-huge-fine-for-packing-51-pieces-of-excess-luggage-including-515-teddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/552931\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Ferguson’s huge fine for ‘packing 51 pieces of excess luggage’ \u2013 including \u00a3515 teddy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Duchess of York was known for her lavish spending and that included spending an astonishing \u00a3515 on a teddy bear \u2013 despite not technically being able to fly it home\"RoyalSarah Ferguson’s lavish spending is the stuff of legend(Image: 60 Minutes Australia)<\/p>\n

After marrying Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Sarah Ferguson<\/a>\u2019s tendency to spend vast amounts of money <\/a>reached astounding proportions. One particular moment served to illustrate the former ski chalet girl\u2019s wild excesses.<\/p>\n

Shortly after marrying Prince Andrew<\/a> \u2013 as he was then known \u2013 Fergie was fined almost \u00a31,000 for packing over fifty pieces of excess luggage on a first-class flight home from New York.<\/p>\n

The vast array of cases contained an estimated \u00a333,000-worth of items she had bought on her trip, including a \u00a3515 teddy bear. And it wasn’t the only example of her astonishing spending<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Heathrow baggage handler was quoted at the time as saying: \u201cNot even Joan Collins has this much.\u201d The palace declined to say who met Sarah\u2019s expenses on that occasion.<\/p>\n

Sarah’s financial advisor, John Bryan<\/a> discovered that she was spending over \u00a3860,000 a year \u2013 a figure which included \u00a3150,000 on gifts, \u00a350,000 on flowers and \u00a350,000 on parties.<\/p>\n

\"Prince ‘I married a prince,’ she said. ‘It was great'(Image: Hulton Archive)<\/p>\n

Sarah had a typical upper-class girl\u2019s work history before her marriage, including a stint cleaning ski chalets, and a job at a publishing company.<\/p>\n

She told Swedish television show, Skavlan how she had undertaken a string of menial jobs: \u201cI cleaned lavatories when I was 18 and graduates’ bedrooms; they all left it very messy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then the waitress in a strudel house. I don\u2019t cook, I just took the strudel out of the deep freezer and put it in the oven; that\u2019s cooking.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, she concluded: \u201cThen I married a prince, it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SarahSarah’s yo-yoing battle with her weight saw her spend a fortune on clothes(Image: UK Press via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

However, like many outsiders, she didn\u2019t realise how cash-poor the royals tend to be. Tina Brown<\/a>, who has written a number of books about the Royal Family<\/a>, explained: \u201cThe biggest problem in the Yorks\u2019 union was \u2014 and always would be \u2014 money.<\/p>\n

\u201cFergie was a crashing spendthrift married to a natural cheapskate who also happened to have much less cash than she had expected. Although far from broke, Andrew was entirely dependent on the Queen\u2019s bounty.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Sarah would not, or could not, rein in her wild spending, and was constantly paying for lavish holidays and expensive restaurant meals. When she was not spending money on herself, she would shower friends and even quite casual acquaintances with expensive gifts.<\/p>\n

By the time her marriage to Andrew collapsed in 1993, she reportedly owed in the region of \u00a34 million to top peoples\u2019 bank Coutts.<\/p>\n

\"PrinceAndrew and Sarah seem now to be going their separate ways(Image: Ian Vogler \/ Daily Mirror)<\/p>\n

But even after she and Andrew separated, Sarah was unable to entirely let go of her prince.<\/p>\n

Tina Brown describes the moment in 2015 that Andrew walked into a restaurant where Sarah was dining with \u201can American media executive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The source told her: \u201cAndrew came in and sat down and said to me, \u2018What are you doing with this fat cow?\u2019 I was so stunned by his level of sadism. She has to sing for her supper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two were locked together in a toxic co-dependency, Brown says: \u201cHe bails her out when she\u2019s in trouble, and she backs him up when he\u2019s assailed by scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sarah’s future is uncertain(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But that relationship may, finally, have reached its end. The pair have been booted out of Royal Lodge after Andrew’s titles were stripped by the King.<\/p>\n

Brown said said: “Andrew’s banishment to an as-yet unnamed property in windswept Norfolk on the Sandringham estate seems to have evaporated Fergie’s much-vaunted loyalty to her ex-husband, now that her freebie digs in a wing of Royal Lodge, 25 minutes from London, will soon have the locks changed.”<\/p>\n

Royal expert Helena Chard says that Sarah\u2019s future remains uncertain, but predicts that \u201cshe is determined to stand on her own two feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSarah will not move in with Andrew,\u201d Chard added. \u201cDespite always being the faithful ex-wife, she realises it will do her no favours continuing her association with him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Duchess of York was known for her lavish spending and that included spending an astonishing \u00a3515…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,1203,176996,40130,2548,519,7717,8792,62994,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-552931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-food","11":"tag-joan-collins","12":"tag-john-bryan","13":"tag-marriage","14":"tag-royal-family","15":"tag-sarah-ferguson","16":"tag-skiing","17":"tag-tina-brown","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115502902653471649","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552931","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=552931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}