Major blow for Sarah Ferguson as she continues to hide away

Very little has been seen of Sarah Ferguson this year.

The former-Duchess of York has been keeping a low profile since losing her titles alongside her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, after they became mired in the Epstein scandal.

Sarah, 66, has only been spotted on a handful of occasions at locations across Europe although – according to reports – she is due to move into a rented £10,000-a-month gated property in the Home Counties imminently.

But she is likely to continue to stay off grid. Sarah’s absence from the spotlight has done little to quell the public’s opinion – and now she appears to have suffered another blow as a result of her connection to Epstein.

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A plaque commemorating Sarah’s association with Great Ormond Street Hospital has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation that the disgraced ex Duchess has been dropped by another charity.

The grey slate plaque featured gold lettering and was fixed to the wall of a special hostel for the parents of sick children at Great Ormond Street. It commemorated the fact that Sarah – as the then-Duchess of York – had opened the ‘Home from Home’ in 1990.

But, as first reported by the Daily Mail, there is now just an outline of the plaque, and two holes in the brick wall it was placed on.

Sarah was previously dropped as the patron of multiple charitable organisations in September 2025, due to her ties to convicted sex offender Epstein. (She has not been accused of any wrongdoing.)

More recently, in February, her namesake charity, Sarah’s Trust, announced that it was shutting down after the Department of Justice released emails showing numerous communications between her and Epstein.

Among more than three million documents released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) earlier this year were emails appearing to show Ferguson was in contact with Epstein while he was in prison for soliciting sex from a minor. Being named in the documents does not indicate wrongdoing.

Established in 2020, Sarah’s Trust was “dedicated to supporting frontline, grassroots work to address the humanitarian and environmental crisis, the hunger crisis and issues perpetuating cycles of extreme poverty”, according to its website.

In February, a spokesperson for the foundation said the decision to close had come after “some months” of discussion.

Sarah lost her duchess title back in October when her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, relinquished his Duke of York title over his links with Epstein, and she was also forced to move out of his Windsor mansion, Royal Lodge, where the couple had lived together, despite having divorced in 1996.

Sarah is “not writing” a tell-all personal memoir to “rescue her reputation”, contrary to reports.

A spokesman for the former Duchess denied that she is considering a seven-figure payout to write a tell-all autobiography, following reports that she is “days away” from a book deal.

“There have been no discussions, and she is not writing a personal memoir; it’s not what she’s going to do,” he said.

A report in The Sun claimed that Fergie’s “compelling” memoir would discuss “key subjects” such as her ex-husband Andrew, as well as King Charles, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The paper also claimed that she wanted to “settle concerns” over her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, for which she has been scrutinised and exiled from public life.

All the latest on Sarah’s return to the UK

It was reported last month that Sarah was planning to return to the UK – six months after her eviction from Royal Lodge in Windsor, the home she shared with ex-husband Andrew.

However, the mother of two has not been publicly sighted in Britain.

She was said to be moving into a £10,000-a-month, six-bedroom gated property in the Home Counties after spending the first half of the year unaccounted for, aside from being spotted twice in Austria and Switzerland.

It’s possible that she was financially motivated to return, or hopes to spend time with her daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, who welcomed her third baby last month.

Speaking on A Right Royal Podcast, HELLO!’s Royal Editor Emily Nash said: “I think the fact that she’s come back now is really interesting. And there are a couple of things that could be behind it.

“One, she may potentially have inherited some money from her great friend whose property she was staying in in Switzerland (Paddy McNally).

“But I think probably the key thing for her will be her grandchildren and wanting to spend more time with them. She’s just welcomed a new granddaughter, Adelaide.

“And while Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank are based in Portugal, they do come back and forth. But she also has Beatrice’s children. And what grandmother doesn’t want to be closer to them? She can’t live in exile forever.”…Read more by Gemma Strong