The latest release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein unveils the extent of Sarah Ferguson’s attempts to find a wealthy partner following her divorce from Prince Andrew. This revelation adds a new chapter to the saga of the former Duchess of York’s life post-divorce.

In a striking email exchange from January 2010, Ferguson, who is now 67, jokingly suggested to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted financier, “just marry me.” This interaction came after Epstein had been convicted for soliciting sex from underage girls.

In her email, Ferguson expressed deep appreciation for Epstein’s generosity, writing, “You are a legend. I really don’t have the words to describe my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness. Xx I am at your service. Just marry me.”

This wasn’t the first instance where Ferguson made such a proposal. In a separate email from September 2009, she suggested Epstein should marry an unnamed woman with a “great body,” before adding, “Ok, well marry me and then we will employ her.”

These exchanges highlight Ferguson’s history of seeking relationships with affluent and influential men, a trait that earned her the nickname “Duchess of Excess” as she accumulated significant debt to maintain her extravagant lifestyle.

Ferguson’s preference for wealthy partners dates back to her early days when her first serious relationship was with Paddy McNally, a British motorsports executive worth over £600 million. She eventually left him for Prince Andrew, the former Duke of York.

After she separated from Andrew in 1992, Fergie dated American oil tycoon Steve Wyatt, fawned over Tiger Woods, and even unsuccessfully courted a Kennedy while she continued to ‘spend money on an epic and often mindless scale’. 

As her debt swelled to £3.7 million, Fergie remained optimistic that a ‘deal was around the corner’ – or, better yet, a suitor who could bail her out.

Steve Wyatt  

American businessman Steve Wyatt swept the former Duchess off her feet after they first met at Houston Grand Opera’s British Opera Festival in 1989. 

By then, cracks had begun to appear in her marriage to Andrew, and Fergie was ‘receptive to falling in love’, according to royal author Andrew Lownie. 

‘Upset by Andrew’s bullying and his recent close relationship with a married woman, Sarah was receptive to falling in love,’ Mr Lownie wrote in his landmark joint biography of the ex-couple, Entitled. 

He reported ‘lonely’ Sarah was ‘enormously attracted’ to the then-30-year-old son of American oil magnate Oscar Wyatt, dubbed the ‘King of Crude’, with a friend reporting the pair had an instant spark. 

The next day, Sarah – who was pregnant with Princess Eugenie – jetted off to the Wyatts’s 16,000-acre ranch near the Rio Grande, where she spent time with Steve as their friendship deepened. 

Fergie even consulted her clairvoyant friend, Maureen Conway, who warned her against the relationship with Wyatt in advice that fell on deaf years. 

Conway later told Mr Lownie that was when she realised ‘how little control Fergie has over her impulses’. 

The biographer also noted that when Fergie returned to New York after visiting Steve at his family ranch, she carried back 51 pieces of excess baggage with ‘£33,000 [worth] of newly bought clothes and gifts’.  

 By December of 1989, Wyatt and Fergie had begun the relationship that would ‘eventually lead to her divorce’.

The Yorks’ marriage, plagued by infidelity, went up in flames after photos of Fergie and Wyatt were unearthed in 1992. 

The tranche of 120 images, which were soon leaked to the press, showed the former Duchess of York and the American playboy soaking up the sun together during a romantic getaway in May 1990.

While seemingly innocent, the snaps raised serious questions about the nature of their ‘complex’ relationship – especially after one snap showed Sarah and Andrew’s then-one-year-old daughter Princess Beatrice sitting on the businessman’s knee. 

Shortly after, Andrew and Fergie announced their separation in March 1992, with author David Leigh claiming Wyatt ‘was the main reason for the breakdown’ of their marriage. 

But Fergie’s whirlwind affair with the American businessman did not have a happy ending either.  

She found out Wyatt had become engaged to Cate Magennis in 1993 as the heartbroken ex-royal told a friend: ‘I can’t have the man I love because he’s getting married. What’s the matter with me? Why didn’t he marry me?’

Later, when Wyatt visited London with his new wife, Fergie couldn’t resist the impulse to try to meet her alleged ex-lover. 

After she learned that Wyatt and Cate were dining at La Famiglia in Chelsea, she followed them to the restaurant and peered through the window to try to spot him. 

She didn’t and was too hesitant to go in. 

John Bryan 

 Wyatt and Fergie’s relationship ground to a halt after the businessman returned to the United States at the beginning of 1992.

Meanwhile, her marriage to Andrew was hanging on by a thread after the ex-Duke became ‘enraged’ about her association with Wyatt, according to Mr Lownie. 

This was when Wyatt’s friend John Bryan swooped in and ‘invited her to dinner at a restaurant’ that was conveniently located close to his flat in Cheyne Place. 

They ‘slept together’ that night as Mr Lownie wrote that ‘the duchess was playing the men in her life off against each other’. 

Bryan’s friend, Allan Starkie told the author: ‘Using John’s closeness as a weapon to taunt the still-faithful but exiled Steve Wyatt and showing her still-admiring husband that she was attractive to jet-setting figures like John and Steve. 

‘Over the years, her Machiavellian skills have received little credit, but here they can be seen in their true colours.’

Bryan himself once revealed the extent of Fergie’s excess; in a newspaper article, he claimed that her £860,000 annual expenditure included £300,000 on staff, £150,000 on gifts, £50,000 on flowers, £50,000 on parties, £150,000 on travel and £100,000 on clothes – £25,000 of it in an hour’s spending spree in Bloomingdale’s. 

The multi-millionaire businessman was also at the centre of the infamous toe-sucking scandal in August 1992.  

Over two decades after he was photographed during an intimate moment on holiday with Fergie and her daughters in the south of France, Bryan told the Mail on Sunday it was actually a ‘beautiful family moment’. 

‘Yes, Sarah was topless, but this was the South of France for heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘And we were in private – or so we thought. We’re with the kids, having a great time. We used to play fun games, make-believe games. 

On this day we were playing Cinderella and I said, “Look, let’s kiss Mummy’s toes”. It was part of the game. I did it first, and then I think one of the girls, probably Beatrice, did it.

‘It was totally innocent; a beautiful family moment of love.’

He also said that his relationship with Sarah continued for another four years after that as they continued living together at her £4,000-a-month Romenda Lodge on the Wentworth Estate in Surrey.

John F Kennedy Jr 

While still ‘frolicking’ with her Texan financial adviser, Fergie developed an intense ‘schoolgirl crush’ on John F Kennedy Jr, the assassinated American president’s dashing son. 

Writing in the ex-Duke’s biography, Entitled, Mr Lownie revealed she invited JFK Jr for drinks or dinner at her hotel during a visit to New York. 

The fact that the world’s most eligible bachelor was already in a relationship with actress Daryl Hannah did not dampen Fergie’s spirits, Mr Lownie claimed, as she remained determined to meet Kennedy.  

‘That’s not going to bother me!’ Mr Lownie quoted Sarah as saying. ‘But it bothered Hannah, and Kennedy cancelled, claiming a prior engagement.’ 

The royal biographer added that Fergie was so worried Kennedy had made an excuse that she ordered members of her staff to ‘spy on his apartment all night’. 

Fergie’s obsession with Kennedy grew more intense after learning that her former sister-in-law, Princess Diana, had met the political scion ‘for 30 minutes at Christmas 1995’ during her own stay at a New York hotel. 

Fergie was ‘furious’ as she is said to have raged: ‘He’s mine! Why can’t she just leave him alone?’ 

Although she never met him, Fergie assigned Kennedy the code name ‘Number Nine’, signifying his imagined place ‘in the order of her lovers’, Mr Lownie wrote. 

She pored over magazine articles written about the flamboyant American and cut out photos of him in his swimsuit. 

Fergie would ask her friends whether they thought she was compatible with ‘Ken’, with one close confidante telling Mr Lownie: ‘It’s incredibly real to her, like a schoolgirl crush. She spends hours talking about him. The fact that she’s never even met him doesn’t seem to matter at all.’

Count Gaddo della Gheradesca 

By November 1997, Fergie had her sights set on Italian nobility when she began dating wealthy Tuscan artistocrat Count Gaddo della Gherardesca. 

Less than a year later, he professed his love for Sarah in an interview with Italian newspaper La Nazione but denied any rumours of marriage. 

While Fergie was still living with Andrew at Royal Lodge, the count had been separated from his wife, Michela, for seven years at the time. 

The pair met through mutual friends, as Fergie and her count spent their time together ‘skiing, socialising in London, or travelling the world’, the BBC reported. 

Sarah was also known to ‘spend time relaxing in the privacy of the count’s home’ in Tuscany. 

Manuel Fernandez

In 2015, news broke that Fergie, then 55, was ‘besotted’ with Spanish internet entrepreneur, Manuel Fernandez, who was eight years her junior. 

It was rumoured that Ms Ferguson and Fernandez – who founded the troubled lifestyle company vVoosh – were dating during 2015 and 2016.

The former British Army soldier turned entrepreneur even attended Bob Geldof’s wedding as her plus one.

The former Duchess denied the rumours at the time, insisting they were just ‘good friends’.

At the time, one source told the Irish Mirror that they were working on a charitable venture together. 

Fast-forward to 2025, and the lifestyle app founded by Fernandez received over £1 million of taxpayer cash – but folded without ever launching a single product. 

vVoosh also launched a sister charity, mentioned as an example of Ms Ferguson’s philanthropy. However, at the time that the company folded, vVoosh Charitable Foundation wass more than four years overdue to report its accounts. . 

Its last accounts from 2019 showed that despite having a gross income of £1.28 million, just £18,240 was spent on charitable activities.

Mr Fernandez has strongly denied accusations he took any money out of the company and has said this will be ‘disproven in the course of legal proceedings’. 

Paddy McNally   

Fergie’s first serious boyfriend, motor-racing entrepreneur Paddy McNally, has remained close with the former royal in the years since their breakup in 1986. 

The Mail on Sunday revealed that Fergie, then 62, sought comfort from her 88-year-old ex-boyfriend after late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre sued Andrew for sex assault. 

Andrew denied the accusations but reached an out-of-court settlement with Giuffre in February 2022. She died by suicide on April 25, 2025. 

McNally invited Fergie, her and Andrew’s daughters – Beatrice and Eugenie – as well as their husbands for a lavish New Year’s Eve party at his ski chalet in Verbier. 

He also reportedly paid for an expensive fireworks display at the plush home dubbed ‘the Castle’.  

A source told this paper: ‘Paddy spent a lot of time with Fergie, rallying round her by putting on a lavish fireworks display for her family, minus Andrew of course. Most of Andrew’s remaining friends, the ones who used to go to Tramp with him, were there.

‘Fergie enjoyed spending time with her dear friend Paddy, whom she adores.’