During a stay at Balmoral Castle in 1992, Sarah Ferguson was pictured in a compromising position which resulted in Queen Elizabeth ordering Fergie to ‘pack her bags’. In the summer of 1992, Sarah Ferguson was staying at Balmoral Castle with her daughters during the summer holidays when a newspaper ran paparazzi photos of her caught in a compromising position.
Photographs of Fergie’s financial advisor, John Bryan, sucking her toes were splashed on the front page of British newspapers. The Times reports the late Queen Elizabeth II told Sarah to “pack her bags and leave immediately”, while Prince Philip “never spoke to her again”. The Duchess of York’s relationship with Philip never recovered after he saw the intimate pictures of Sarah and her financial advisor.
Royal expert, Camilla Tominey, wrote: “He apparently never forgave her for ‘toe-gate’. The Duchess had to suffer the ignominy of an excruciating breakfast during which a “furious” Queen pored over the pictures of ‘Fergie’s stolen kisses’.” In 2022, John Byran spoke to Lorraine Kelly on ITV, and explained he had stayed in contact with the Duchess of York and they remained together for four years after the scandal.
Recalling the moment a friend revealed photographs of him sucking Fergie’s toes, John remarked: “I was really quite horrified.” The financial advisor believed he sucked Fergie’s toes as part of a game with a young Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, playing “make-believe”. On Lorraine, John did go on to praise Prince Andrew and Fergie on the general handling of their divorce: “I think the two of them are exemplary in terms of how they conducted themselves getting divorced.”
Fergie and Prince Andrew separated in 1992 before pictures of Mr Bryant were released, and the pair divorced in 1996 after nearly six years of marriage. Due to Prince Andrew’s military career, husband and wife barely saw one another during the first years of their union, which reportedly contributed to the breakdown of their marriage. Today, the Duke and Duchess of York continue to live together at Royal Lodge in Windsor. On Easter Sunday, Fergie joined Prince Andrew and the wider Royal Family members for the traditional Easter Sunday church service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
The past few months have seen her invited back into the royal fold, having joined the Firm for the Christmas walkabout last year and at the end of February she attended a thanksgiving memorial service for King Constantine II of Greece.
Fergie has also faced battles with cancer, having been diagnosed with skin cancer this year after facing breast cancer last summer.
