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"  &amp;quot;I really miss Diana. I loved her so much,&amp;quot; says Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, about the Princess of Wales. &amp;quot;Diana was one of the quickest wits I knew; nobody made me laugh like her. But because we were like siblings \u2014 actually, we were fourth cousins and our mothers, who went to school together, were also best friends \u2014 we rowed. And the saddest thing, at the end, we hadn&amp;#039;t spoken for a year, though I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head.... I tried, wrote letters, thinking whatever happened didn&amp;#039;t matter, let&amp;#039;s sort it out. And I knew she&amp;#039;d come back. In fact, the day before she died she rang a friend of mine and said, &amp;#039;Where&amp;#039;s that Red? I want to talk to her.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  But that was not to be \u2014 a loss that also affected the duchess&amp;#039;s relationship with Prince William and Prince Harry, with whom she&amp;#039;s had no contact &amp;quot;since Diana and I quit speaking. I&amp;#039;d like to \u2014 we had lovely times together \u2014 but I don&amp;#039;t want either thinking that I&amp;#039;m trading on my friendship with them, pushing myself on them, though I&amp;#039;ll always stand by the boys 100 percent. They&amp;#039;ve grown up exceptionally well \u2014 leaders, role models \u2014 but then Charles is a great man and Camilla is fabulous. I&amp;#039;ve known her my entire life because she and my mother [killed in a 1998 car wreck] were always best friends, and she was so nice to me. I love her&amp;quot; \u2014 an affection that apparently caused no problems with Diana. &amp;quot;Actually, I didn&amp;#039;t see much of Camilla then,&amp;quot; she says. You&amp;#039;ve got to hand it to Sarah Ferguson. Despite some spectacularly inappropriate and public mishandlings of her youthful relationships with men, the 47-year-old veteran of palace intrigue has maneuvered some tricky royal waters with remarkably admirable aplomb.  Take the 1996 divorce deal she struck with her formidable former mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, whom &amp;quot;I still see, love, and admire. I didn&amp;#039;t want a divorce but had to because of circumstance,&amp;quot; she says, calling it &amp;quot;the most painful time of my life.&amp;quot; (She and Prince Andrew had legally separated in 1992, triggered by the demands of his naval career \u2014 which allowed the couple to see each other a mere 40 days a year for the first five years \u2014 as well as rumors of her infidelity.) &amp;quot;I wanted to work; it&amp;#039;s not right for a princess of the royal house to be commercial, so Andrew and I decided to make the divorce official so I could go off and get a job.&amp;quot;  She pauses. &amp;quot;The queen and I always got on well, still do; I uphold everything Her Majesty represents, has given up her life for,&amp;quot; without, she believes, regrets. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s her duty. For her country, she&amp;#039;s selfless to the grave.&amp;quot; As for the queen&amp;#039;s mothering skills, she rallies an immediate, ringing defense: &amp;quot;I believe Her Majesty&amp;#039;s done the best job she can. For me, she&amp;#039;s been extraordinary.&amp;quot;  Perhaps it&amp;#039;s because the queen&amp;#039;s former daughter-in-law behaved in kind when it came to the terms of her divorce, opting for &amp;quot;friendship, not money. When I met with Her Majesty about it, she asked, &amp;#039;What do you require, Sarah?&amp;#039; and I said, &amp;#039;Your friendship,&amp;#039; which I think amazed her because everyone said I would demand a big settlement. But I wanted to be able to say, &amp;#039;Her Majesty is my friend&amp;#039; \u2014 not fight her nor have lawyers saying, &amp;#039;Look, she is greedy.&amp;#039; I left my marriage knowing I&amp;#039;d have to work. I have.&amp;quot;  This year marks not only Sarah&amp;#039;s triumphant decade-long run as a spokesperson for Weight Watchers but also the January launch of her own company, Hartmoor, &amp;quot;a global inspirational lifestyle and wellness company&amp;quot; \u00E0 la Martha Stewart. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m the boss,&amp;quot; beams the co-CEO once better known for spending than making money. &amp;quot;Hartmoor is a department store of everything I do: books [she&amp;#039;s written 24, and another in her children&amp;#039;s series Little Red is in the works, and a portion of proceeds will go to her charity Children in Crisis], a Web site,&amp;quot; and products like her Slatkin &amp;amp;amp; Co. candle, available in May, with a percentage of sales going to the Sarah Ferguson Foundation.  The duchess&amp;#039;s career has been both a self-esteem builder and a necessity. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always helped fund my daughters,&amp;quot; she says of princesses Beatrice, 18, and Eugenie, 16. &amp;quot;Andrew does the best job he can, but he is the second son, so I&amp;#039;ve always helped out.&amp;quot; Currently, the girls live with their father at Royal Lodge, the spacious digs he inherited upon the queen mother&amp;#039;s death, where Sarah also stays when in England, which isn&amp;#039;t often. &amp;quot;I really don&amp;#039;t live anywhere,&amp;quot; says the duchess, who constantly circles the globe for business or charity work, &amp;quot;except perhaps New York,&amp;quot; where Hartmoor occupies a suite of swank Madison Avenue offices and she maintains a small apartment, &amp;quot;more like a room and desk.&amp;quot;   Her daughters, she proudly adds, &amp;quot;are extraordinarily bright. Even with dyslexia, Beatrice got A&amp;#039;s in history and classics. We do everything together, even go clubbing, which caused some people to say, &amp;#039;Can&amp;#039;t you back off? They don&amp;#039;t want their mother there.&amp;#039; So I asked them and they said, &amp;#039;No, we want you to come because you&amp;#039;re hip-hop, crazy, mad.&amp;#039; I just don&amp;#039;t see the world like most people. I don&amp;#039;t tell my daughters anything. They decide; I guide&amp;quot; \u2014 and quite brilliantly, it seems. Last month the American Cancer Society awarded Sarah its Mother of the Year award \u2014 a remarkable victory for the woman whose own mother deserted her family for Argentinian polo player Hector Barrantes when Sarah was 12. &amp;quot;Mum returned from a trip to South America, walked in the farmhouse, and said to my unsuspecting father: &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m going.&amp;#039; There were screams and shouts, and then she just left. Her last words to me were &amp;#039;I don&amp;#039;t like your hair,&amp;#039; because while she was away, instead of getting a haircut in London as she always insisted, I&amp;#039;d had it cut in the village shop. Being a child, I believed that disobeying her caused their split \u2014 and started eating, compensating for my guilt.&amp;quot; The scars still linger. &amp;quot;I was so lacking in self-confidence when I found Weight Watchers&amp;#039; counselors, who saved my life, that if you suddenly looked at me, I&amp;#039;d say, &amp;#039;What did I do?&amp;#039; Even now I apologize for most things and I don&amp;#039;t really know why,&amp;quot; she muses, her large blue eyes searching, vulnerable, &amp;quot;except perhaps to say &amp;#039;Sorry.&amp;#039; Being blamed for the failure of the monarchy, living through 15 years of terrible press, was very difficult. To this day, I take everything very personally.&amp;quot; And speaking personally, Sarah \u2014 ever the vivacious, fun, quick-to-self-deprecate, gracious redhead \u2014 confesses that she&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;very lonely,&amp;quot; having not dated for &amp;quot;five years. I&amp;#039;d like to, but I don&amp;#039;t meet men; besides, they&amp;#039;re terrified of me. Not only do I come with the world&amp;#039;s press, but I&amp;#039;m 47 and I say what I feel. I&amp;#039;m not going to play games. Still, there are many, many evenings when five o&amp;#039;clock rolls around \u2014 I never stop working, of course \u2014 but still I long for someone to say, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s go have a glass of wine.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; She sighs. &amp;quot;But when you&amp;#039;re a survivor, you do what it takes.&amp;quot;  As for surviving the royal family, Sarah demurs when asked to give advice to potential royal brides like Prince William&amp;#039;s girlfriend, Kate Middleton. &amp;quot;All I&amp;#039;d say is, no matter what, stay with your man; don&amp;#039;t let him be taken from you. Prince or no prince, love that man, and that love will hold him. I married my boy, who happened to be a prince and a sailor, because I loved him \u2014 and still do \u2014 my only condition being, &amp;#039;I have to be with you.&amp;#039; And two weeks after the wedding, the courtiers told Andrew, who thought he&amp;#039;d be stationed in London, &amp;#039;You have to go to sea.&amp;#039; I spent my entire first pregnancy alone; when Beatrice was born, Andrew got 10 days of shore leave, and when he left and I cried, they all said: &amp;#039;Grow up and get a grip.&amp;#039; So don&amp;#039;t let them tell you what to feel, how to do things, who you are. Be yourself.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a84/sarah-ferguson-0307/>