At 10 years younger than Prince Charles, the Queen’s ‘favourite’ son, Prince Andrew, was the complete opposite to his serious, studious big brother.
Dubbed ‘Randy Andy’, the naval lieutenant worked hard and played even harder, romping around town with the glossy set and causing sleepless nights for the Queen and Prince Philip as they fretted about his future.
Indeed, his quest to find a royal wife was not going well.
His first serious relationship with US actress Koo Stark ended in heartbreak in 1982 when it emerged she’d starred in a lesbian shower scene in soft-porn movie, Emily.
One was not amused.
Responding to the scandal at the time, the Palace said: "We do not know if the Queen was aware of the girl’s acting career before she was invited to Balmoral."
Andrew was devastated and turned his attention to photographing scenes of ‘loneliness’.
Then his sister-in-law Princess Diana came up with a cunning plan to reintroduce him to the rambunctious Sarah Ferguson, the daughter of Major Ronald Ferguson, Prince Charles’s polo manager.
Sarah – who is rumoured to have enjoyed a fling with Charles before he met Diana – had been friends with Andrew as a child, often sneaking away from their parents’ polo matches to play tag.
But they lost touch and hadn’t spoken in years before Diana invited her to join them at Royal Ascot in 1985, where she was conveniently seated right next to Andrew.
They hit it off immediately, started dating that same week and got engaged nine months later on February 19, 1986 – his 26th birthday.
Andrew designed Sarah’s Burmese ruby engagement ring himself, and picked the stone to match her hair.
Announcing their engagement in a televised interview, he revealed: “I asked Sarah some weeks ago and Sarah said yes. Which surprised me.
“Here’s a little anecdote for you – she said ‘when you wake up tomorrow morning, you can tell me it’s all a huge joke’.
“I didn’t.”
Unlike the shy, complicated Diana, Fergie was described as a simple country girl with a sense of fun. She was welcomed in by the Queen.
“Why did Prince Andrew marry me, he could have married a lovely model, he had hundreds of models chasing him, but he married funny old me and that’s because it was meant to be," she reflected years later.
“All I knew is that I would go anywhere for love."
Like Prince William and Kate, they married at Westminster Abbey, before snogging on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in front of 100,000 people.
Two years later their first baby daughter, Beatrice, arrived, followed by Eugenie in 1990.
But the cracks had already started to form with Andrew’s naval career forcing them to spend months apart.
It wasn’t enough for Sarah.
Speaking to US TV host Ernie Manouse in 2010, she said: “My deal was that I was marrying my man, who happened to be a prince and a naval officer.
“But what I got was not the man, I got the palace and didn’t get him… and the courtiers told me I had to go to Buckingham Palace and he had to go to sea.
“For our marriage, I saw him 40 days a year.”
After weeks of speculation and rumours that Fergie was having an affair with American Steve Wyatt, they separated in January 1992 with the Queen confirming their parting in an unusually narky statement.
It read: "In view of the media speculation which the Queen finds especially undesirable during the general election campaign, Her Majesty is issuing the following statement…
"Last week, lawyers acting for the Duchess of York initiated discussions about a formal separation for the Duke and Duchess. These discussions are not yet completed and nothing will be said until they are."
It was later claimed that Steve, not Andrew, was the ‘love of her life’ and that she fell ‘head over heels’ in love with him.
The pair is said to have met in 1989 at Houston Grand Opera’s British Opera Festival when she was pregnant with Eugenie.
“Steve Wyatt was main reason for the breakdown of her marriage," claimed David Leigh, co-author of The Duchess of York uncensored.
“She met him at a time of her life when she was exceptionally low and felt Andrew wasn’t supporting her.
“She went to Texas and she met a very handsome and rich Texan who was very attentive and loving and they very quickly fell in love.
"Andrew may have been her best friend, and he probably still is now and probably always will be, but Steve Wyatt was the love life of her life.”
She was apparently left heart broken when he got engaged to Cate Magennis, then all hell broke loose in August 1992 when Fergie was pictured having her toes sucked by her American financial advisor John Bryan – Steve’s close friend – as they soaked up the sun in the South of France.
She would later insist she didn’t actually want a divorce from Andrew, but from that point on the choice was taken out of her hands.
"When I met with Her Majesty about it, she asked, ‘What do you require, Sarah?’" she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2011.
"And I said, ‘Your friendship,’ which I think amazed her because everyone said I would demand a big settlement, she continued.
"But I wanted to be able to say, ‘Her Majesty is my friend’— not fight her nor have lawyers saying, ‘Look, she is greedy.’ I left my marriage knowing I’d have to work. I have."
It wasn’t like Andrew didn’t go on to have any fun of his own though.
In 2006, Courtney Love made the revelation that he had once turned up to her Hollywood house wanting ‘to party’.
"He’s come to Hollywood to look for chicks. I don’t know what he expected at my house; I think he thought it was going to be like a party," she claimed.
But while Fergie and Andrew’s relationship remained uniquely amicable – with family holidays and joint appearances continuing unabated – her banishment from the royal fold was swift and savage.
The Queen’s sister Princess Margaret even penned brutal note accusing her of doing, "more to bring shame on the family than could ever have been imagined."
“Not once have you hung your head in embarrassment even for a minute after those disgraceful photographs. Clearly you have never considered the damage you are causing us all. How dare you discredit us like this?" she wrote.
To this day Prince Charles is said to still bear a grudge, and snubbed her from Prince Harry and Meghan’s evening wedding reception which he hosted.
"Numbers are limited to the evening party, she is not a member of the Royal Family any more and Prince Charles simply doesn’t have time for her. He just can’t see why she is still such a big part of his brother’s life," a source told the Daily Mail.
While the Queen is believed to have forgiven her, Prince Philip’s wrath is said to be equally as ferocious, with the 97-year-old apparently distinctly unexcited about coming face-to-face with his former daughter-in-law when Eugenie marries Jack Brooksbank in Windsor on Friday. If he goes at all.
Meanwhile, Fergie’s noble idea of making her own way financially proved to be as ill-fated as her marriage, with the ex-Duchess of York allegedly running up debts of £2million due to bad business deals.
She tried to claw her way back to the black, shedding her cruel ‘Duchess of Pork’ nickname by signing up as a Weight Watchers ambassador; penning Budgie the Little Helicopter; launching reality show Finding Sarah; and even making a guest appearance in Friends.
Then in 2010 she found herself at the centre of a tabloid sting where she appeared to be offering to sell access to Prince Andrew as part of a business deal – something she vehemently denies.
"I didn’t do that, selling access . . . I said, ‘If you’re going to invest in my business, with that comes my family, because we’re all a team together.’ But the way it came across in the video, it was so horrible, because they cut it and edited it," she told Harper’s Bazaar.
Despite the scandal, Andrew stood firmly by her.
So much so that they share a £13million ski lodge in the swish Swiss resort of Verbier and apparently still live together at Windsor’s Royal Lodge.
In 2000 she even claimed she and Andrew had thought of remarrying, but said Prince Philip wouldn’t allow it.
And in 2010 she admitted that if they had their time again, they would stand up to those who pushed them apart.
“Both Andrew and I… both of us say now if we could go back we would definitely play it differently and we should have learnt how to play the chess game differently.
“And maybe we have still been together because we would have said ‘no ‘to being separated just after our wedding.”
In 2017 she set tongues wagging when she told an Australia radio show that they ‘never really left each other.’
And Fergie once went as far as to confirm she is still very much in love with Andrew.
“I think the love I had for him then, is the love I still have for him now. I still married the best and the greatest gentleman that I know,” she told Ernie Manouse in 2010.
"We are the happy ever after, it’s just not about marriage. It’s more about this extraordinary friendship we have.
“Andrew and I, we have a love which is unfathomable, it’s so great and the two girls love it.
“Should we be married? I don’t think we’re meant to be married.
“I think I am free and wild and going around, but nothing will take his place in my heart.”
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