By 1990, they had two daughters, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, making them a perfect family unit.
But beneath the surface, cracks in their relationship were starting to appear. Sarah privately complained that she was spending only 40 days each year with her husband because of his naval service, and rumours of an affair with Texan millionaire Steve Wyatt surfaced in early 1992 (she would later claim she and Andrew had an open relationship).
Andrew and Sarah kiss after the announcement of their engagement in 1986.
In March 1992, Buckingham Palace announced the couple were separating after just six years of marriage. In a hint of what was to come, Queen Elizabeth also announced that she would not be taking responsibility for Sarah’s debts.
The separation in itself was not a disaster: after all, Princess Anne had announced her own separation from her first husband Mark Phillips three years earlier, and Princess Margaret had divorced in 1978.
Divorce can be done with dignity, which was the least that could be expected of a couple whose expensively celebrated marriage had lasted for such a short time.
Instead, the pair seemed determined to outdo each other in their efforts to humiliate the monarchy.
Andrew and Sarah with their daughters Eugenie (left) and Beatrice in Switzerland in 1998.Credit: AP
In August 1992, just five months after the separation announcement, a topless Sarah was photographed on holiday with her financial adviser John Bryan, now her lover. Photographs of him sucking the toes of Elizabeth II’s daughter-in-law appeared on the front pages of newspapers and magazines around the world, which so infuriated Prince Philip that he in effect banned her there and then from taking part in future family occasions.
Princess Margaret reportedly wrote to her saying: “You have done more to bring shame on the family than could ever have been imagined.”
Amid speculation about a possible reconciliation, the couple’s divorce was finalised in May 1996. Sarah at the time retained the title Duchess of York but she ceased using Her Royal Highness.
Sarah with John Bryan, right.
By then, it had become obvious that Sarah’s spending habits were becoming a problem – it later transpired that by the time of the divorce, she was £4.2 million in debt.
She pleaded poverty, saying her divorce settlement had amounted to just £15,000 a year, which had left her with no option but to seek other sources of income, such as a role as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, an autobiography called Sarah: My Story and her Budgie the Helicopter children’s books.
Buckingham Palace was so enraged by her claims that it let it be known she had received £350,000 in cash, £500,000 from the Queen to buy a house, and a monthly allowance that had paid out £500,000 in the first 14 years after the divorce.
Nevertheless, Sarah seemed unable to live within her means, and her money-grubbing became a constant source of embarrassment.
In 2010, she was filmed offering an undercover News of the World reporter access to Andrew for £500,000.
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Then, in 2011, it emerged that Epstein had helped her to avoid bankruptcy by paying £15,000 to clear a debt to an aide. Several charities immediately dropped her as a patron.
Andrew’s own relationship with Epstein became a wound on the royal family’s reputation that was reopened over and over again.
In 2010, two years after Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor, Andrew was photographed walking through Central Park in New York deep in conversation with him. His friendship with the paedophile cost him his role as Britain’s trade envoy and he insisted he had cut all ties with Epstein.
In 2014, he was accused in court papers of having sex with 17-year-old Virginia Roberts (later Giuffre), who said she had been trafficked by Epstein. The allegations rumbled on for years. In 2019, Andrew, showing typical arrogance, decided to grant an interview to the BBC’s Newsnight, thinking it would clear his name. But he only made matters worse when he said he did not regret his “very useful” relationship with him.
Andrew with Virginia Roberts Giuffre (centre) in 2001 and Jeffrey Epstein’s then personal assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The crisis prompted by the interview led to the suspension of Andrew’s public duties, including his stepping down from all 230 of his patronages.
Andrew’s controversial friendships with foreign billionaires did not end with Epstein. The sale of his marital home for £3 million more than the asking price to the billionaire son-in-law of the president of Kazakhstan – who then left it to fall derelict – defied logical explanation.
By 2023, King Charles felt that Sarah deserved to be given a second chance, and she joined the royal family for Christmas at Sandringham for the first time since 1992.
Yet the Epstein scandal refused to die, and in early October it emerged that Andrew, who claimed to have cut off all contact with Epstein in 2010, had emailed him in 2011 after a photograph of him with Giuffre appeared in the Mail on Sunday.
In 2023, Sarah joined the royal family for Christmas at Sandringham for the first time since 1992.Credit: Getty
He told Epstein: “It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it … we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
His ex-wife had also been caught lying over Epstein. In September 2025, it emerged that in April 2011, a month after she had claimed to have severed all ties with him, Sarah wrote to him and said that “from the truth of my heart” she wanted to “humbly apologise” for denouncing him.
Separately, the Duke had developed an unfortunate habit of forming friendships with alleged Chinese spies. Chris Yang, who was barred from entry to Britain in 2023 on suspicion of spying, had been invited to royal residences by Andrew. This month, it emerged that the alleged spymaster at the heart of the collapsed Chinese spy trial had met Andrew at least three times.
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On Thursday, the King decided enough was enough and initiated the formal process to strip Andrew of all his titles, leaving him simply as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. By doing so, the monarch has done what his late mother could never bring herself to do – make his brother give up the dukedom she had held so close to her heart.
For Sarah, the King’s decisive move marks the nadir of a public and humiliating downfall. Where once there were tentative efforts to bring her slowly back into the royal fold, there is now only isolation. And when she leaves Royal Lodge alongside her disgraced ex-husband – rumoured to be happening in the new year – she will be left to forge a path on her own.
The Telegraph, London
