Oh bless you, Fergie, you should have said. All this time the woman lucky enough to look at the Duke of York over the breakfast table has been hiding her light under a bushel.
“I haven’t shown my huge personality properly because I’ve tried to keep it under the cushion,” she tells Hello! magazine over nine richly rewarding pages. “I’m just not excusing myself any more. You don’t have to be what everyone wants you to be, just be yourself. One of the only people who saw me properly was the Queen, and before she died she said, ‘Sarah, being yourself is enough.’ ”
OK. So. First, I’m pretty sure that Queen Elizabeth would only have talked about “seeing” people properly in the context of whether she had her glasses on. Second, what does Fergie think “everyone” wants her to be? Off the top of my head I’d say “quiet”. Failing that, “gainfully employed”. Even better, both.
But I can’t honestly say that over the years I’ve devoted much time to it. Third, this huge personality she’s been hiding all these years, masking her true self. Tell me more. I’ve always known that my personality would best be expressed as a ballerina dancing Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House. Alas, reality bites, so I type for a living instead.
What about Fergie? Was she hiding her real personality when she dressed up as a policewoman to gate-crash Prince Andrew’s stag night at Annabel’s, then pretended to arrest a prostitute at the gates of Buckingham Palace?
Was it when she sold access to her ex-husband to an undercover reporter? Was it all the times she went on Oprah to flog china tea sets and talk about Queen Elizabeth? Or the time she published Budgie the Little Helicopter under the shy and retiring byline of HRH the Duchess of York? Of course, you were hiding your personality under a cushion! Was it embroidered with “Do you know who I am?”
To be fair, self-awareness has never been Fergie’s strong point. This is a woman who once called herself the “most persecuted woman in the history of the royal family”, which may come as news to Lady Jane Grey.
And when she praises her daughters, whom she describes as her “girlies” for being “the finest examples of humility”, my thoughts turn inexorably to the interview Beatrice and Eugenie once gave to Vogue, in which they talked about keeping it real even though they’re princesses. Girlies, if I may, a word of advice. You know this princess stuff isn’t real, right? We made it up. It suits our constitution.
This is a woman who once called herself the “most persecuted woman in the history of the royal family.”
And on we blithely go. Of Queen Elizabeth, Fergie says, “I think about her as many times a day as I possibly can,” a sentence of profound oddness. And all this talk about being your authentic self puts the fear into me.
Has she been to Montecito? Is she going to start speaking her truth and if so, will it be true? The Internet is awash with advice on the importance of embracing your authentic self and taking it to work, and it’s always struck me as a terrible idea. If I took my true self to work it would probably be greeted with a P45. Perhaps, though, it will work for Fergie.
Speaking of work — or to rephrase Prince Charles as he then was, whatever work means — what on earth was she doing at the Cannes Film Festival? Who paid for that little boondoggle? Us? Where did the money come from for her to buy a $6.3 million house in Mayfair as an “investment” for the blood princesses?
In what parallel universe does she think her agent might be able to get her a walk-on part in Bridgerton, as she hopes? It’s a drama series, love, not a pantomime. And do get in touch if you have the faintest inkling what the following might mean: “Children need to have somebody they can follow who is a connective leader … My whole objective is a movement called philanthropeneurship and I am the first visiting professor of philanthropeneurship at the University of Huddersfield. I am loving putting that concept into the marketplace.”
Fergie now calls herself an author, which in light of the above is one way of putting it, and she is determined, she says, to start living instead of “not quite living”. The mind boggles. Buckle up, everyone.
Hilary Rose is a longtime columnist and features writer at The Times of London