Sarah Ferguson has recalled the time she was allegedly arrested with Princess Diana at Ferguson’s bachelorette party before her wedding to Prince Andrew in 1986.
On Tuesday, the Duchess of York appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show following the release of her new novel, A Most Intriguing Lady, which debuted on 4 March. While speaking to host Kelly Clarkson, the 63-year-old revealed that she was once arrested with Princess Diana during a night out.
The two royals went out to a nightclub dressed as police officers to celebrate the duchess’ upcoming nuptials to the Duke of York. “It was extraordinary, because we went to a nightclub, of course, you go to a nightclub with the Princess of Wales,” she recalled about Diana, who was married to Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, at the time.
“We went to this nightclub and she was very good as her costume. We sat down, and the waiter came up to us and said: ‘Excuse me, this is a members club. It’s for fun, and we don’t serve police officers here,’” the duchess continued.
After they left the nightclub, Ferguson recalled how Diana broke character when she saw a woman wearing the same dress that she had: “I said: ‘Dutch, no! You can’t say that! We’re meant to be police officers.’”
The author then revealed to Clarkson that she and the royal were allegedly arrested for impersonating police officers, and were taken into the back of a police van by actual officers. It was then that Diana noticed “smokey bacon flavoured crisps” and started eating them, until a policeman in the front of the car told her: “You can’t do that!”
However, the men eventually realised their true identities and set the Duchess of York and the Princess of Wales free.
“Everyone always says to me: ‘You must miss Dutch, you and Diana. And I go: ‘No, because I laugh,’” Ferguson later told Clarkson. “I mean, she’s with me all day. She and I, we laughed a lot…We got into trouble a lot.”
Ferguson – commonly known by her nickname Fergie – was married to King Charles’ younger brother, the Duke of York, from 1986 until their divorce in 1996. The two are parents to daughters Princess Beatrice, 34, and Princess Eugenie, 32. Meanwhile, Princess Diana was married to the monarch in 1981 before they divorced in 1996.
The Duchess of York has often cited her close relationship with Princess Diana when weighing in on the current tumultuous relationship between Diana’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. Following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s exit from the royal family in 2020, Ferguson revealed what she thinks the late Princess of Wales would have made of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to step down as senior working royals.
“Diana would be very proud of her sons and I think they’re exceptional, exceptional boys with exceptional wives and fabulous children and so I think that she would be going: ‘YES!’” she told Australian radio station KIIS 1065 in 2021. “I think that what she would have been is very proud of her boys standing tall and firm. They’re very like her and I think that she would be proud.”
Fergie went on to imagine what life would be like today if Diana was still alive. “Oh my goodness, can you imagine the grandmother races that we would have together?” she said. “The parties... I would bounce her off the bouncy castle that’s for sure.”
The grandmother of two previously told People that Diana would be “obsessed” with her own five grandchildren as well. The Prince and Princess of Wales share three children – Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four – while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are parents to Archie Harrison, three, and Lilibet Diana, one.
“If she were sitting with me right now, I know she would say: ‘I am so proud of both of my boys and the wonderful wives they have chosen,” she added. “Because each has got her own voice.”
