A desperate Sarah Ferguson yesterday turned to Oprah Winfrey to try to explain her antics — blaming the pressure to be as beloved as Princess Diana for her mindless mission to sell access to her former husband, Prince Andrew.
“After Diana died, I felt very alone with being out on the big stage, and my mother died, and my best friend died all at the same time, and I suddenly felt very, very alone,” Ferguson told the talk-show host.
She said a “long life of trying to be perfect” made her live beyond her means and fall prey to a pay-to-play sting.
“I’ve been a huge, overtrusting, idiotic, stupid woman that went to look for the perfect situation, and that’s all I can say really say,” Ferguson said in her first public comments about the scandal.
In what she described as “gross stupidity,” Ferguson said her royal shakedown of a British reporter posing as a wealthy businessman began as a favor for a friend that spun horribly out of control.
“A friend of mine needed $38,000 urgently,” Ferguson said, explaining why she was caught taking $40,000 in cash during a videotaped sting.
Ferguson, looking drained and worn down, said she had hit rock-bottom, and barely recognized the woman who walked away on tape with a satchel full of cash.
“You look at the devil in the face, which you do,” Ferguson said. “Then you forgive, and you say, ‘OK, I’ve made almost a mistake that will never be forgotten,’ and forgive.”
As for the $724,000 she requested in exchange for a meeting with the prince, Ferguson said she was just pressing her luck.
“I just took a long shot,” Ferguson said. “I must have been a little bit worse for wear, and I think I just went, well, if you’re going for 40, OK, well, if you want to do business in the future, then, you know. To be honest with you, I can’t even think where my head was.”
After seeing the complete video for what she said was the first time, Ferguson apologized to royal watchers on both sides of the pond.
“I have, through my actions, hurt millions of people, all my friends, my family first and foremost, and I must — I believe that from this it’s almost like I’ve freed Sarah from the treadmill of her life, really, of her long life of trying to be perfect,” Ferguson said. “The self-hatred has been huge.”
Ferguson, 50, said she is considering bankruptcy.
“I think I’ve been living, trying to be the duchess of York,” Ferguson said, explaining her spending habits. “I think I’ve been trying to be not what I really — it’s so difficult to explain. Beyond my means, yes. Trying to keep it up, keep me up, keep Sarah going.”
Ferguson said her debt had gotten so out of control that she had to rely on her ex-husband to give her a room.
But Britain’s royal pain, who has two children with the prince, hints that she took less money than she could have in her 1996 divorce because she wanted to remain friends with Andrew’s mother, Queen Elizabeth.
“I chose friendship with the family, and I wanted friendship with the boss,” Ferguson said. “She’s the most wonderful grandmother.”
Ferguson said a confidentiality agreement kept her from confirming reports that she received only $20,000 a year in her divorce settlement. She said her 12-year deal as a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers was her major source of income.
Ferguson could be in line for another source of income. According to RadarOnline.com, she is being recruited for Celebrity Rehab IV, a VH-1 reality show.