Last week, one of the royal offices fed a particularly gross story to Becky English at the Daily Mail. A well-placed “royal insider” bitterly complained about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s planned April trip to Australia, and specifically complained about Meghan headlining a “girls’ weekend” retreat in Sydney. The insider sniffed that Meghan is “basically Fergie” now. While the insider came across as typically incandescent and stupid, I found that quote to be particularly insidious given the timeline. The timeline being… Sarah Ferguson has been in the wind for months now, and since her ex-husband’s arrest, absolutely no one has any idea where Sarah is. Instead of headline after headline about Sarah’s (bombshell) emails to Jeffrey Epstein or the mystery over her whereabouts, the British media made sure that every single story (for days) about Sarah involved that dumb quote. Well, this weekend, People Magazine at least tried to remind everyone that Sarah is still missing.
Sarah Ferguson’s whereabouts remain unknown following the arrest of her ex-husband, the former Prince Andrew, even as her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, retain their palace homes — raising questions about where the former Duchess of York will live when she returns to the U.K.
Ferguson, 66, has not been seen in public since December 2025, when she attended the christening of her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice’s now-1-year-old daughter Athena, and is believed to be abroad as her ex-husband’s dramatic fall from grace takes another turn. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, also 66, was arrested on Feb. 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office and as of late January, PEOPLE understood that the former Duchess of York planned to spend time overseas as she mulled her next moves.
Ferguson has reportedly spent time at wellness centers in Switzerland and Ireland in recent months. The Daily Mail previously reported that she checked into Paracelsus Recovery, a Swiss rehabilitation clinic, from just after Christmas until the end of January. In February, the outlet reported that she jetted to Ballyliffin Lodge & Spa, a remote wellness retreat in Donegal, Ireland, returning to the coast she previously praised as a refuge in a 2024 TikTok.
While both Andrew and Ferguson have been forced out of their longtime home at Royal Lodge — with Andrew now living on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk and Ferguson believed to have been house hunting in Windsor — their daughters still hold the keys to royal residences of their own. Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 35, are not full-time working royals and pursue private careers, but they retain homes at royal palaces in London. Tech executive Beatrice has an apartment at St. James’s Palace, while Eugenie, an art gallery director, has Ivy Cottage at Kensington Palace.
The royal residences serve as second homes for the princesses, who are primarily based elsewhere. Andrew is widely reported to have pushed for his daughters to retain the properties, which they rent through a private arrangement with King Charles.
“The [rental] deal was made with their father as he wanted them to have a foothold in the royal palaces,” a source told The Times in the U.K. about the arrangement. The Times further reported that while Andrew “was initially responsible for covering his daughters’ rent, it is not clear if they are now responsible for covering their own costs.” The costs of the rent for each residence also remain unclear.
As I said last week, I’m not going to argue that Beatrice and Eugenie need to be included everywhere or that they need to keep their royal homes, especially when both women have other, non-royal homes. It is what it is, and the sooner B&E come to terms with their new reality, the better. Still, several things are crazy to me: in their mother’s absence, B&E are absolutely being thrown under the bus by the monarchy/institution Their uncle, King Charles, would happily draw this out for months if it meant that people would stop asking HIM what he knew and when about Andrew’s dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. Prince William is simply a hateful person who wants to alienate as much of his family as possible. Two, it’s more than possible that if Charles continues to renege on his “deal” with Prince Andrew, Andrew might be the one to start talking about what Charles knew and when. This is all a house of cards for the monarchy and I don’t know how much longer they can continue to scapegoat B&E. Also: where the f–k is Fergie?? It’s crazy that no one can find her and/or the British media isn’t devoting any energy to looking for her. They’re all too busy doing the palace’s dirty work.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Sarah’s social media.
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