‘Fragile’ Sarah Ferguson has checked into another luxury hide-out: report

While Sarah Ferguson has not been seen in public since her ex-husband, the former Prince Andrew, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the resourceful former duchess has been tracked to various destinations where mysterious benefactors seem to be making it possible for her to hide away in total luxury as her ties to Jeffrey Epstein bring global scutiny.

Ferguson’s latest stop has been to locations in Ireland, according to the Daily Mail and journalist Paula Froelich. The Daily Mail said the “fragile” former Duchess of York was spotted at an airport earlier this month near the Ballyliffin Lodge & Spa in Donegal, the northern-most county in Ireland. Ferguson, 66, spoke of visiting the resort, with its wind-swept views of the North Atlantic, in a 2024 TikTok video, the Daily Mail also said.

“I find things get sometimes overwhelming,” Ferguson said in the video, filmed on a nearby beach. “I just try and take myself off to the most beautiful, wonderful blast of fresh air.”

A royal source told the Daily Mail: “Last time Sarah visited Donegal she spoke about how it was somewhere she could escape to when things were ‘overwhelming’ — and they can’t ever have been more overwhelming for her than they have been in recent weeks.”

Meanwhile, Froelich cited a NewsNation report in her The Scoop newsletter that said that Ferguson also had been visiting the grand Powerscourt Estate, on the other side of Ireland, in Wicklow, south of Dublin.

The news of Ferguson turning up in Ireland comes as the Daily Mail reported Thursday that her disgraced ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, had been cultivated by Russian spymasters, via their good friend Epstein, the late American financier and convicted pedophile who died in a Manhattan prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The Daily Mail, citing a top-secret US intelligence document, reported that Russian agents regarded Mountbatten-Windsor as a “useful idiot” and the royal family’s “weak link” into the British establishment.

Meanwhile, as authorities intensify their focus on Mountbatten-Windsor’s alleged misconduct, the Daily Mail reported last week Ferguson has been “sofa-surfing on a global scale” the past several months and had recently visited the United Arab Emirates — after reportedly spending the entire month of January luxuriating at a $17,000-a-night wellness clinic in Switzerland.

Mountbatten-Windsor, to whom Ferguson was married from 1986 to 1996, was arrested on Feb. 19 on suspicion that he allegedly shared confidential government information with Epstein while he served as a British trade envoy between 2001 and 2011. Mountbatten-Windsor became the first senior member of the royal family to be arrested in 400 years after he was taken into custody at his new home on King Charles’  private Sandringham estate northeast of London.

Police also conducted searches at Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion in Windsor that he shared with Ferguson. Following their divorce, the two exes stayed on friendly terms and occupied different wings of the mansion. That is, until they were officially evicted from Royal Lodge last year when the king also stripped them of their royal titles.

The recently released Epstein files show that Ferguson, known for profligacy and always being cash-strapped, relied on the accused sex trafficker to loan her money, help get her out of debt, fund at least one of her business schemes and help her secure commercial brand deals with Target and NBC. The emails also reveal that he paid for her and daughters Beatrice and Eugene to fly from London to Miami to visit him in July 2009, shortly after he was released from jail after serving time for soliciting a minor for prostitution and registering as a sex offender. In a series of affectionate emails to Epstein, Ferguson called him “the brother I have always wished for” and said to him, “just marry me.”

The Daily Mail reported last week that Ferguson sought refuge at the Paracelsus Recovery Clinic in Zurich, flying there after Christmas. In an undated video promoting the Paracelsus clinic, Ferguson described the lakeside center as “a safe haven, a nurturing oasis, a place where I can feel not judged,” according to a video played by The Royalist podcast. She expressed deep gratitude to the founder of the clinic, which offers different month-long recovery programs for ultra-wealthy clients, for “giving me safe harbor in the storms of life.”

For her recent stay, Ferguson may have been a guest of the Paracelsus, for a total estimated cost of around $600,000, due to her past promotional efforts on the clinic’s behalf, Froelich and Tom Sykes said on Sykes’ The Royalist podcast.

After Ferguson’s stay at Paracelsus, she reportedly traveled to the Middle East, specifically to Doha, the capital of Qatar, to attend an Art Basel event with Eugenie, the Daily Mail said. After that, she may have accompanied Beatrice’s husband, Edo Mapelli-Mozzi, as he attended a design conference in Palm Beach, Florida. The Daily Mail reported she then spent time at a French ski resort to “get her head together” with friends and then returned to Switzerland, to join Eugenie and her family on a ski holiday in Gstaad.

Now, Ferguson may be in Donegal, staying at the 40-bedroom resort, which recently reopened following a $2 million remodel, the Daily Mail reported. As with her Zurich trip, she felt comfortable going to Donegal, knowing it was “very remote and very discrete so there was minimal chance of her presence becoming known to the wider world,” a source told the Daily Mail.

It’s also possible that Ferguson’s travels are being being bankrolled by multi-millionaires in the Middle East, according to royal author Andrew Lownie, who wrote “Entitled,” a best-selling book about the scandal-hit former Duke and Duchess of York.

“In Britain, neither Sarah nor Andrew will be socially accepted again, whatever they try to do or wherever they go,” Lownie said, according to the Daily Mail. “But in the Middle East, no one will care about what they have got up to. There are people there — royalty, politicians and business types — whom Sarah can quite happily sponge off and who will be happy to bankroll both of them.”