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They were once the closest of friends.
For years, Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson were two women bound by the surreal experience of marrying into Britain's most famous family.
The royal brides — Diana wed the future King Charles III in 1981, while Fergie married his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Duke of York, in 1986 — shared inside jokes, private struggles and a rare understanding of what life was really like behind palace walls.
But something went wrong in 1996 — coincidentally the same year both of their royal divorces were finalized — and it left both women devastated.
A friendship begins
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In his 2025 memoir, The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess Diana, former palace butler Paul Burrell recalled how Fergie and the late Princess of Wales grew close in the 1980s as they navigated royal life together.
"Fergie formed a friendship with Diana, Princess of Wales, from the beginning of 1982," Burrell wrote, as reported by DailyMail.com. In those early years, "They would discuss the dour men in grey suits within the royal household, nicknamed 'the enemy within.'"
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Burrell — who was a footman to the late Queen Elizabeth II before working as a butler to Charles during the monarch's days as Prince of Wales and served Diana until her death in 1997 — explained how the Princess of Wales, "having been in the royal family for five years," by the time Ferguson wed the former Prince Andrew, "was able to offer Sarah some sage advice on the dos and don'ts, whom she could trust and a rather lengthy list of those with whom she should be cautious."
But their closeness didn't last.
The betrayal that changed everything
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The turning point came in 1996 after Ferguson released her first memoir.
"It was tragic that the relationship between them disintegrated after the publication of Sarah's autobiography, My Story, in 1996," Burrell wrote. "Although Diana supported Sarah's decision to go public and become an independent woman, her support came with conditions."
According to Burrell, the Princess of Wales had asked Ferguson not to write about her, her sons — Prince William and Prince Harry — or their relationship. "But it was too much to ask," Burrell explained. "When the book was published, Diana was furious that throughout its pages, there were references to her, William and Harry."
While some reports indicated their falling out was caused by a specific claim Ferguson made in the book suggesting she'd contracted plantar warts from shoes Diana had given her, "that was not the case," Burrell clarified in his book.
The truth, Burrell claimed, is that "Diana felt used and refused to speak to Sarah."
The final breaking point
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In the aftermath, the former Duchess of York and the Princess of Wales stopped speaking directly, instead communicating through letters. At least until one exchange pushed things too far again.
In his book, Burrell described the moment a letter arrived, appearing to be from one of Ferguson's young daughters, Princess Eugenie, with the envelope addressed to "HRH The Princess of Wales" in a child's handwriting.
"Diana said to me, 'Look at this,' as she held the letter head high," he wrote. "'She is now using her children to intervene. It's her last resort?' Diana was incandescent with rage. The relationship was terminated for good, and they never spoke again."
According to Burrell's book, "Diana's last words to Sarah were that when it came to honesty, perhaps she shouldn't resort to using her child to address envelopes to Diana and that Diana was happier than she had ever been."
By the time Diana tragically died in the wake of a Paris car accident in the summer of 1997, she and Fergie had not spoken in months.
Looking back
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Years later, in another memoir, the former Duchess of York looked back on her friendship with the late Princess of Wales with warmth and some lingering confusion.
"Diana was one of the quickest wits I knew; nobody made me laugh like she did," Fergie wrote in her 2011 memoir, Finding Sarah: A Duchess's Journey to Find Herself, noting they were so close, "We took vacations together with our children."
But "sadly," Fergie added, "at the end of Diana's life, we hadn't spoken for a year, although I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head, it stuck there for a while."
