Sarah Ferguson Is Not Invited to King Charles III's Coronation
Meghan Markle is not the only member of the royal family set to miss the coronation of King Charles III.
Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson, ex-wife of the monarch's brother Prince Andrew, will not attend the May 6 event at Westminster Abbey, a source told E! News. The BBC also quoted sources as saying the Duchess of York she bears no "ill will" about this decision and not inviting her also does not constitute a snub against the author, who has maintained good relations with her former in-laws over the years.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the matter when reached by NBC News.
Sarah signaled on the ITV show Loose Women on April 5 that she did not expect to attend the coronation. "Because, remember, I am divorced from [Andrew]," said she. "I don't expect—you can't have it both ways. You can't be divorced and then say, 'I want this.' You're in or you're out."
As for what she plans to do on the big day? "I personally will be having a little tea room and coronation chicken sandwich and putting out the bunting, that's what I'm going to be doing," Sarah explained. "Because that would make me very happy. I always love to watch it on the telly because you hear a lot on the telly. The commentators are always good."
The news comes two days after the palace announced that Prince Harry will attend the coronation, while his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, will remain with their children, Prince Archie—who will celebrate his 4th birthday the same day, and Princess Lilibet, 22 months, in California. The couple had moved there following their controversial 2020 exit from their roles as senior Royals.
The coronation will mark the first public family reunion for Harry since he attended Queen Elizabeth II's funeral with Meghan last September. It also comes four months following the release of his tell-all memoir Spare in January. In the book, he dropped several bombshells about his strained relationships with his brother, Prince William, and the King, in what marks a departure from Royal protocol of keeping personal affairs private.
Sarah—who was good friends with the princes' late mother Princess Diana and who, according to Harry's book, taught Meghan how to curtsy to the Queen—did attend the the couple's 2018 royal wedding. She was excluded from William and Kate Middleton's nuptials in 2011, a year after it was revealed that she offered to sell access to Andrew for upwards of $700,000.
Sarah has publicly voiced her support for the Sussexes amid their turmoil.
"I have been in Meghan's shoes, and I still am," she told Vogue Arabia in 2019. "There's always a twist of negativity and it just gets so sad and tiring; it's hard and mean. I abhor bullying and I feel desperately sorry for the pain they must be going through because I've been through it."
While Sarah will be absent from the coronation, her ex Andrew is also expected to attend the event, the BBC reported.
The Duke of York has largely kept out of the spotlight since he stepped back from his public royal duties in 2019 amid allegations that he had once sex with a 17-year-old girl obtained for him by his then-friend and late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew has denied ever meeting her. In 2022, he and the accuser, now an adult, settled a sexual abuse lawsuit she had filed against him and the case was dismissed.
Andrew and Sarah, parents of Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, remain friends following their divorce and even live together at Royal Lodge near Windsor Castle, where they are raising the Queen's corgis.
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