Following Prince Andrew’s humiliating step down from public duty in 2019, the status of his long-standing ‘relationship’ with ex-wife Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson was thrown into doubt for almost four years after the pair opted to distance themselves from each other – at least publicly.
Now, following their public return for a Christmas church service in 2023, the pair, after just a handful of joint outings over the past year, opted to make another appearance together at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent last week.
And the timing of their ‘reunion’ couldn’t have been more telling, as it was revealed just days earlier that the continued enquiry into convicted paedophile, Jeffery Epstein, could see officials release thousands of damning email trails dubbed the ‘Epstein Files’ – with sources warning that Andrew could be ‘destroyed’.
‘They are embarrassing and incriminating and he could be destroyed,’ a source said at the time.
But in a strange twist of fate, it was Sarah, 65, who found her name splashed over headlines worldwide as a damning series of communications between herself and her ‘supreme friend’ Epstein saw her dropped from seven patronages within just hours of their release.
Now with both Andrew and Sarah engulfed in the biggest scandal of their lives, a source tells us the former married couple have never been closer. So much so, they tell us, that pals are even predicting that the tough times they’re currently enduring could lead to a romantic reconciliation, almost three decades after their divorce.
The insider says, ‘Andrew hasn’t dated anyone in many years and a lot of people believe that’s because he only has eyes for Sarah, who’s been the definition of a soulmate and someone he trusts implicitly with all his heart.
‘Andrew’s been consoling and advising Sarah about this latest mess and she sent a very clear message to the world by accompanying him to the Duchess of Kent’s funeral recently.
‘They’ve still got that ‘us against the world’ vibe going on, it just makes perfect sense for them to formalise things again at some point and officially reconcile.’
But first, Sarah could be facing the biggest fight yet to save her reputation.
In the shocking emails released earlier this week, Sarah wrote to convicted paedophile Epstein, describing him as her ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’, adding, ‘Sometimes the heart speaks better than the words. You have my heart.’
Further entangling herself in a web of deception, her email was sent just over a month after Sarah publicly cut herself from Epstein entirely – a decision we have now learnt was driven by her need to save her career as a children’s charity ambassador and children’s author.
On March 7th 2011, Sarah made a statement in which she described her friendship with Epstein as a ‘terrible, terrible error of judgement’, adding, ‘I will never have anything to do with him again.’
However, on April 26th, Sarah sent her private email to Epstein, apologising ‘to you and your heart’, before explaining how the scandal – which had seen Epstein released from jail after a 13 month sentence for soliciting sex from underage girls in 2009 – had left her ‘broken and lost’.
It was also revealed that, in 2010, Andrew, 65, had allegedly helped to facilitate Epstein paying off £15,000 of Sarah’s debts – a sum she accepted despite his jail time.
And now the source reminds us that this isn’t the first time that Andrew and Sarah, who described her and the Duke of York as being ‘good friends and a good team’ during their 1986 engagement interview, have remained by each other’s side through tumultuous times, including Sarah’s two diagnoses of early stage breast and skin cancer in 2023 and 2024 respectively,
‘When Sarah got sick with cancer Andrew was by her side and offered support throughout,’ the insider says.
‘And when he’s been at his lowest ebb due to the Epstein crisis she’s had his back, even as the whole world subjected him to contempt and ridicule.’ The source continues, ‘They’re the definition of soulmates, it’s just a question of whether they want to take the next step and go back to being lovers again.
The main reason they haven’t thus far is because there’s that worry about jeopardising what they have, but at this point they’re so intertwined and bound to each other that there’s no chance of them severing ties even if things didn’t work out.’
It was Sarah who, in 2019, remained by her ex-husband’s side as life as he knew it imploded after it was alleged that he had sexually assaulted Virgina Giuffre when she was just 17 – a meeting that she claimed was organised by Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving 20 years for sex trafficking.
At the time, Sarah told Vogue magazine that Andrew – with whom she shares Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 35 – is the ‘best man I know’, adding in 2022, ‘I will stand very firmly by Andrew’.
But with Sarah’s own name currently mired in scandal, the source says the ‘disgraced’ duo are now more devoted to each other than ever.
They tell us, ‘These two couldn’t possibly function without being front and centre in each other’s lives, the co-dependency goes both ways and to be fair they’re totally devoted.
‘Andrew has been tripping himself up and getting himself embroiled in various scandals for longer than anyone can remember, but Sarah’s loyalty and support has never wavered for a second – even after they got divorced.’
Sarah and Andrew have lived together at Royal Lodge on the Windsor Estate since 2008, after four years of living apart.
But with yet more calls from the public, and reportedly from members inside The Firm, to evict them for good, reports have suggested that Sarah could now face ‘financial destitution’ without any royal protection.
And the source says the couple could now be forced to rely on each other when it comes to reining in their royal coffers.
Now the source explains, ‘Of course the more cynical interpretation is that they’re bound together financially more than anything, especially right now. He’s always offered her security and connections to help fund her projects, and it certainly benefits them from a tax point of view to merge their affairs and go halves on as many costs as possible.
‘They share pretty much everything, from lawyers and accountants to household staff, cars and even groceries. And of course they’re each other’s de facto therapists, too.
‘If the worst comes to worst and they’re booted from Royal Lodge then they’d most certainly look to move in somewhere else together.’
Sarah and Andrew officially announced their divorce in 1992 after six years of marriage, with reports suggesting that Andrew’s gruelling work hours in the navy, combined with Sarah’s wish to pursue a commercial career, had been the driving factors behind their break-up.
Of course five months later, Sarah was pictured having her toes ‘sucked’ by her millionaire financial advisor. But now the source says that she and Andrew, who the BBC even formerly referred to as ‘a lad’, still share the spark that drove them together when they were first set up by Princess Diana.
The insider says, ‘A big reason for that [the divorce] was because they both wanted to see other people and they got restless being tied down and living long periods apart due to work. But it speaks volumes that every other romance they’ve had since has paled by comparison to what they shared.
‘It’s a true love story, they like to joke that they know each other better than they know themselves. You can’t miss the spark between them.’
And with both Andrew and Sarah up to their eyeballs in scandal, you perhaps have to question who else would have them...