Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson removed from multiple charities over Epstein email
Six charitable organizations abandoned the Duchess of York as a boss or ambassador after an email in 2011 emerged in which she called the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme friend” and seemed to apologize for his public criticisms towards him.
Julia’s house, a charity for children’s hospice, was the first to withdraw Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, saying that it was “inappropriate” for her to continue in the role.
Later Monday, the Trust Cancer Teenage, Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the charity for children and prevent breast cancer also announced that they had abandoned the duchess as a boss.
British Heart Foundation also said that she would no longer be the ambassador of the charity.
A Duchess spokesperson said that she was not commenting on the decisions of charitable organizations.
On Sunday, The Mail and Sun Newspapers published an email from 2011 from the Duchess in Epstein, which seems to have been sent after having publicly claimed to have broken the contact with him.
In the email, she seemed to apologize in private for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: “You have always been a constant, generous and supreme friend for me and my family.”
It seemed to contradict her public denunciation of Epstein in an interview earlier that year, in which she had said that her involvement with him had been a “gigantic error of judgment” and that: “what he did was bad and for which he was rightly imprisoned”.
A spokesman for the Duchess said that her subsequent e-mail in Epstein, describing him as a friend, had been sent because she was trying to counter a threat from him to pursue her for defamation-and that she always really regretted any association with him.
“This email was sent in the context of the councils that the duchess was given to try to mitigate Epstein and his threats,” said a spokesperson’s statement on weekends, when Epstein’s email was published.
The exchange of emails took place several years after the imprisonment of Epstein for sexual offenses in 2008.
The Duchess became the boss of the charity of the house of Julia – which serves families in the Dorset and the Wiltshire – in 2018 and had visited one of his hospices.
The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, launched after the death of the teenager Natasha Ednan-Lacreus of a serious allergic reaction to the consumption of a wand, asked the Duchess to become a patron when it was created in 2019.
She has united her forces to prevent breast cancer in 2024 following her own breast cancer treatment the previous year, and was the Mécène du Teenage Cancer Trust for 35 years.
Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and the ex-husband of the Duchess, withdrew as a royal who works and lost his royal patronage after challenges on his association with Epstein, including in an interview with the BBC Newsnight in 2019.
Contact with Epstein continued after being released from prison – Prince Andrew being photographed with Epstein in Central Park in New York in 2010.
There was increasing pressure in the United States for the publication of any information on Epstein and its famous connections, which saw more details emerge, including messages sent to it in the alleged “Birthday Book”.
Epstein died by suicide in prison in New York in 2019, pending a trial for sexual traffic.
