You wouldn’t attend a funeral mass in a Mr Blobby outfit – sometimes in life you just need to read the room. So Sarah Ferguson having reportedly written “desperate” messages in Christmas cards to the Royal Family, sending “apologies” and “expressing regrets” for past events is hardly the time or the place. 

The former Duchess lost her royal title in October last year after ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor lost his ‘Duke of York’ following increasing pressure over his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Palace aides described the tone of the messages as “overly effusive and almost pleading”, as though trying to “smooth over” tensions in the family, amid claims she’s “disgracing herself with these cringey Christmas messages”.

Firstly, is a Christmas card the best place to apologise for causing months of anguish and hell for your family? Maybe it’s a season of goodwill for the likes of you and I, but we haven’t got the name ‘Epstein’ on our resume.

Also, where do you put a Christmas card like that? It’s hardly one for the centre of the mantelpiece next to the carriage clock. “Grandad, who’s that pretty Windsor Castle and Royal Lodge Christmas card from?”

“That one? It’s from Auntie Sarah expressing her regret at historic links to a convicted sex trafficker and paedophile. Merry Xmas!”

Thirdly, considering it was King Charles, Queen Camilla and Prince William who stripped Andrew and Fergie of their royal titles – why on earth would they entertain a ‘begging’ letter from her?

Yes, the events were in the past, so why wasn’t she apologising back then?

To give a spot of background, in 2011 Fergie gave an interview – after Epstein’s 2008 sex trafficking convictions – to stress her prior involvement with Epstein had been a “gigantic error of judgment”.

She vowed she would never have anything to do with Epstein again, saying: “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children. 

“I cannot state more strongly that I know a terrible, terrible error of judgement was made, my having anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein. What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.” 

But in September 2025 a bombshell email surfaced showing that shortly after giving that 2011 interview, she emailed Epstein to apologise for that public act of distancing – calling him a “supreme friend”. 

In that email she stressed she never used the word “paedophilia” in reference to him, writing pleadingly to the millionaire: “As you know, I did not, absolutely not, say the ‘P word’ about you but understand it was reported that I did. 

“I know you feel hellaciously let down by me. You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.” 

That email was over 14 years ago, but it took until last month to say “Soz!” in a Christmas card? If I had got one it certainly wouldn’t have triggered festive joy – more like seasonal spewing. 

But I guess for Fergie, 2026 does not offer too many glimmers of hope for salvaging her reputation or paying the bills (she’s always had a flirtatious relationship with debt). 

Interestingly, if you ‘Google’ her name the first response the search engine comes up with is ‘Sarah Ferguson – author’. 

But I can’t see her ‘Budgie the helicopter’ children’s books flying off the shelves this year – nor her lifestyle tomes like ‘Dieting with the Duchess’. 

Although she may want to reread her 2001 book ‘Reinventing Yourself with the Duchess of York’. It might have some useful tips.