Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has been fired from a children’s hospice after it was revealed she called Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme friend” in emails just seven weeks after denouncing him as a pedophile.

Julia’s House, a hospice in the west of England, said on Monday: “Following the information shared this weekend on the Duchess of York’s correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, Julia’s House has taken the decision that it would be inappropriate for her to continue as a patron of the charity. We have advised the Duchess of York of this decision and thank her for her past support.”

Questions will now be asked if Ferguson can hang on to her role as patron of Prevent Breast Cancer, a role closely tied to her own health journey after her 2023 cancer diagnosis, and her decades-long patronage of the Teenage Cancer Trust. This last seems particularly exposed, given the explicit references in her emails to Epstein about protecting her status as a figurehead of children’s causes.

The disgraced duchess has repeatedly courted scandal. In 2010 she was caught in a News of the World sting offering access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, in return for $615,000. She was filmed accepting a $49,000 cash down payment and promising to “open doors” to Andrew.

After the story broke, she apologized for what she called a “serious lapse in judgment” and said her financial difficulties were no excuse. In a later interview with Oprah Winfrey, she admitted she had been drinking at the time of the sting, describing herself as “out of control” and adding, “I was in the gutter at that moment… I’m aware of the fact that I’d been drinking, that I was not in my right place.”

The newly revealed emails to Epstein threaten to fatally damage her reputation. On March 7, 2011, Ferguson told the Evening Standard that accepting $18,500 from Epstein was “a gigantic error of judgment,” adding, “I abhor pedophilia,” and vowing: “I will never have anything to do with him again. I deeply regret it. How many more times do you want me to underline that?”

Yet seven weeks later she wrote to Epstein: “I know you feel hellaciously let down by me,” insisting she had not used the “p word” [pedophilia] in her interview and gushing: “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”

That description of Epstein as a “generous” friend to her “family” is likely to send nervous shivers down the spines of her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

Author Andrew Lownie, whose new book Entitled triggered the latest wave of revelations about the couple, told The Royalist that he believes Ferguson took far more than the oft-stated $18,500 from Epstein.

In an exclusive interview on The Royalist’s Substack he said: “It’s not £15,000, it’s more like £2 million [$2.46 million]. It’s why Andrew went to see him in December 2010, just to get a bit more money out of him, and what she hasn’t explained, even the £15,000, is whether that money was repaid. We can’t trust a single word she says.”

Despite the scandal, King Charles has still not publicly severed ties with Andrew and Fergie.

A source told the Daily Mail they may still be allowed to attend family events provided they arrive and leave via the “back door.”

That raises the extraordinary prospect of the disgraced couple, who divorced in 1996, attending Sandringham this Christmas, though barred from joining the family’s traditional walk to church. Lownie suggested the king’s hesitation to banish them from the royal presence may stem from fear that Ferguson could write a tell-all memoir.

The revelations are expected to bolster Prince William’s determination to banish Andrew permanently and entirely from royal circles.

William, who, as the Daily Beast has reported, believes his father has been “weak” in his dealings with Andrew, made his loathing for his uncle obvious when Andrew attempted to approach him at the funeral of the Duchess of Kent last week.

Charles, by contrast, appeared content to chat.