As the ex-wife of Britain’s favorite scandal-plagued, disgraced royal, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Sarah, Duchess of York, is no longer forced to abide by royal protocol. Although, in fairness, she wasn’t a big fan of doing so even while married to Andrew. Sarah, AKA flame-haired Fergie, has always marched to the beat of her own drum.
Like Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Fergie was hammered by the British press and public for her style choices. She was persistently compared, unfavorably, to Diana, Princess of Wales, fat-shamed and called horrendous names — the tabloids dubbed her “Duchess of Pork” and “Fat Fergie.” Not surprisingly, it stung. “It took my opinion of myself to absolutely nothing, a piece of dirt,” she told The Observer in October 2002. “And maybe I had to reach that point to start to put myself back together.”
“I lost all my self-esteem, I lost any confidence I had, I lost myself, completely, and I don’t want any girl to have to go through that,” she told the Child Mind Institute in December 2012. “So I focus a lot of my attention on building self-esteem at a very young age.” Somehow, Fergie managed to build herself back up again, and these days, she doesn’t feel the need to always be polished and made up to the nines. She’s happy to be bare-faced, regularly stepping out without a scrap of makeup.
