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After decades of being a Duchess, Sarah Ferguson has given up the title for good. Her ex-husband Andrew announced earlier this month that he would be relinquishing his royal titles and honours as fresh claims emerged about his links to Epstein. And now it has been revealed that he will also lose his prince title and leave his 30-bed mansion, Royal Lodge, along with his ex-wife. Sarah and Andrew have remained on good terms since their divorce in the mid-1990s, but despite making tentative steps back into public life together over the last couple of years, it appears they will likely be shunned from the royal fold for good going forward. Prince William is said to have long been a driving force in taking a firmer line when it comes to his uncle Andrew, and is likely to shut the disgraced royal out even further when the time comes for him to take the throne. Emily Maitlis, the journalist who conducted Andrew's 'car crash' Newsnight interview in 2019, claims that William is still leading the charge. She claimed on the News Agents podcast that William put pressure on Andrew and Fergie's daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, to encourage their parents to move out of their long-term home - willing to put his cousins' own title of princess into question if their former husband and wife would not agree to move. Royal sources have disputed this claim. However, being banished from the royal fold is something all too familiar for the scandal-hit couple. For several years, Andrew has only been allowed to attend select family events, and Fergie spent decades being disinvited from high-profile occasions, including one major snub that saw her travel to Thailand to get away from it all. When Kate and William tied the knot in 2011, Fergie was not on the guest list for the nuptiuals, and the same year she told 60 Minutes Australia that she had gone on holiday when the wedding was happening, to avoid "memories". Sarah was asked if it was a "kick in the guts" to be snubbed from the event, to which she replied: "It was a moment where I took myself off to Thailand, and there was no television or radio, so I was able to just be completely quiet, and just sort of, you know, I was the last bride up that aisle and it brings back lots of memories. Elsewhere in the interview, she referred to her own wedding day to Andrew as "the best day of my life, apart from having my girls, and I had a lovely dress, it's a great dress, and it was certainly a long kiss on the balcony, that was a good long one." Sarah also said i n the interview that it was "very hard" for her to be banished from the royal fold in other ways. "I long to be part of it all," she explained. "It's been really sad for 15 years not to spend Christmas with the girls...because it's a Royal Family occasion, and I'm divorced from the Royal Family and so I don't get to spend time with them. But I'm glad because I give the Queen a lovely gift of my girls." However, she noted, "you can't have your cake and eat it too."
