Royally bonded. Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson were both sisters-in-law and close friends, but their relationship was not without conflict.In her 2011 memoir, Finding Sarah, Ferguson recalled the pair’s falling out before Diana died at 36 in a 1997 car crash in Paris. “It is true that our friendship was periodically strained.
Sadly, at the end [of the princess’ life], we hadn’t spoken for a year, although I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head it stuck there for a while,” she wrote.The twosome were fourth cousins and knew each other as adolescents, although their friendship truly started to blossom when they reconnected in 1980.
At the time, Diana was 19 and Ferguson was 21. “Diana was one of the quickest wits I knew. Nobody made me laugh like she did,” the Duchess of York told Harper’s Bazaar in February 2007.When Diana married King Charles III in 1981, Ferguson was in attendance.
She became a confidant to the Princess of Wales as she navigated her transition into royal life. “She was two years younger than I, and I strove to support and protect her as I would a younger sister,” the duchess later wrote in her 1997 book, My Story.The author and Diana went from friends to family members when Ferguson married Prince Andrew in 1986.
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