Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson Fell Out Over This Allegation in Ferguson’s Book, Author Claims

NEED TO KNOW

• Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson’s friendship reportedly ended after Ferguson published her autobiography

• Royal author Andrew Lownie alleged Diana distanced herself over concerns Ferguson was undermining her reputation and selling stories

• Ferguson previously told PEOPLE that she and Diana uniquely supported one another as the “wives of Windsor”

Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson’s friendship fell apart after the former Duchess of York published her autobiography, a royal author claims.

Historian and author Andrew Lownie shared his take in a new video released by the Daily Mail on May 28, where he recapped the arc of the relationship between the two women.

The late Princess of Wales and Ferguson, 66, were fourth cousins and childhood friends who married into the royal family just a few years apart, and Diana was 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, “in which 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 well be selling stories about her, and that relationship was never repaired, though Sarah Ferguson pretended it had,” he said.

Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana attend the Derby Day meeting at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Epsom, Surrey on June 3, 1987.
Credit: Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty

Elsewhere in the clip, Lownie, author of the bestselling 2025 investigative biography Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, alleged that Ferguson was someone Diana turned to voice her frustrations about life in the royal fold.

“Diana would come to Sarah Ferguson every Sunday, and they would moan about the royal family. They both felt very restricted within the confines of the royal family. But at the same time, there were some concerns Diana had that Fergie perhaps was too boisterous, and she was kind of undermining Diana’s own reputation, and she began to distance herself,” he said.

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Princess Margaret, Sarah Ferguson, Prince Harry, Princess Diana and the Duchess of Kent on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, London, watching a fly-past commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain on September 15, 1990.
Credit: Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty

The author claimed that Diana also pulled a “tough trick” on Ferguson by saying that they would both divorce their husbands, the future King Charles and then-Prince Andrew, at the same time.

However, Diana “let Sarah Ferguson 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, 66, divorced in 1992 after a decade of marriage but remained close in the years that followed. The pair even continued to live together at Royal Lodge, the home he was evicted from when King Charles stripped his brother’s royal titles, including prince, in October 2025, in light of renewed scrutiny around 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. She died following a car accident in Paris the following year at age 36.

Prince Charles, Princess Diana, Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew on a skiing holiday in Klosters, Switzerland in February 1987.
Credit: Shutterstock

Ferguson previously told PEOPLE that she and Diana uniquely supported another during the heyday that they dominated the front page as the “wives of Windsor.”

“Diana and I both had our own mental health issues, and she and I used to talk,” Ferguson told PEOPLE in 2021. “She said, ‘Fergie, remember one thing: When you’re at the top of the pedestal, it’s so easy to fall off. And you’re at the bottom. You just climb up.’ “

Read the original article on People