Undergoing a mastectomy helped Sarah Ferguson find self-love after being harshly compared to Princess Diana for years.
The Duchess of York, 63, described undergoing the surgery for her breast cancer diagnosis as a “waking up” moment to “stop self-hatred” and to “stop not liking yourself” in Wednesday’s episode of her “Tea Talks with the Duchess and Sarah” podcast.
“When I look back, you know, I was OK … I got good legs and look good, and I didn’t like myself, and that was because, I think, you know, I was always compared to Diana,” Ferguson admitted.
“I think at the end, I sort of believed my own press, which is, you know, not too good,” she added.
The ex-wife of Prince Andrew admitted that it took “a body part to be cut off” in order for her to “wake up and stop worrying, stop self-hatred, stop self-doubt, stop all these things. Stop not liking yourself.”
Sarah shared how lucky she was that her sister Jane Ferguson urged her to get a mammogram and that her doctors found the cancer before it was too late.
“The greatest luck of my life is to have a wonderful sister … who asked me to go have a mammogram because that is something that has saved my life,” she said.
The new podcast host also recalled the last advice the late Queen Elizabeth II gave her, which was “to be yourself.”
“She saw it. She just got so annoyed when I wasn’t being myself,” Sarah said of the Queen, who died in September 2022 at the age of 96. “And that’s probably when I got into more pickles.”
She continued, “But now I am myself, and I’m just so lucky to be able to be myself. It’s so hard. What a journey.”
The “A Most Intriguing Lady” author — who was married to Andrew, 63, from 1986 to 1996 — had a close friendship with Diana before the 36-year-old Princess of Wales’ fatal car crash in 1997.
Sarah and Diana were often photographed together at royal events, and the duchess has openly discussed their complicated relationship.
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“We promised each other we would always be together — there was never any daylight between us,” she told People in 2021. “But everybody wanted [to see a feud] because we were so strong together. People want to break something so strong.”
However, Sarah did admit to feuding with the late ex-wife of King Charles III for a year in a 2007 interview with Harper’s Bazaar.
“The saddest thing, at the end, [was that] we hadn’t spoken for a year, though I never knew the reason,” she told the magazine.
“I tried, wrote letters, thinking whatever happened didn’t matter, let’s sort it out. And I knew she’d come back. In fact, the day before she died she rang a friend of mine and said, ‘Where’s that Red? I want to talk to her.’”
Sarah — who shares daughters Princess Beatrice, 35, and Princess Eugenie, 33, with the disgraced Duke of York — revealed in June that she had to undergo surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
She is recovering at home at Royal Lodge in Windsor, where she resides with her ex-husband despite divorcing nearly 30 years ago.
“She’s had lots of support, both her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, are being very supportive, as is Andrew,” a source told Page Six at the time.
Sarah has maintained a solid relationship with the royal family, though she was left off the guest list for Charles’ coronation ceremony in May.
