FERGIE GETS CANDID
‘I’ll be an amazing nana!’
Her daughter has yet to walk down the aisle but Sarah, Duchess of York, is already looking forward to becoming a granny.
She thinks she is going to make an “excellent” nana, recently saying, “I used to write children’s books and I am a child, I haven’t grown up.”
Fergie (58) was appearing on a BBC TV show to raise awareness for two charities, Street Child and Children in Crisis, but was happy to discuss how excited she is about the forthcoming wedding of her youngest daughter, Princess Eugenie (28) to her longtime boyfriend Jack Brooksbank.
She reckons she is also going to be the “best” mother-in-law. It helps that her future son-inlaw has a job in the alcohol industry with the company founded by George Clooney and Rande Gerber, Cindy Crawford’s husband, she jokes.
“The good news is Jack also works as the European manager for Casamigos Tequila, so I am perfect.”
Fergie, who is still close to her former husband Prince Andrew (58) and lives part-time with him at the Royal Lodge, Windsor, giggled as she disclosed a practical joke her ex likes to play on Jack (32). Unfortunately for Jack, he has the same name as the family dog, which Andrew takes advantage of.
“This is where Andrew is brilliant, you see, because he says, ‘Jack, get off that chair!’ Jack – son-in-law Jack – jumps up and says, ‘Argh, what have I done now?’ Then we all say, ‘No, not that Jack!’”
She appears to be very fond of Eugenie’s fiancé, describing him as “an amazing bringer of light”, and explaining that her daughter is an extremely organised person, especially when it comes to the wedding, which will be held on October 12 at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. “Eugenie is very controlled – she is so sorted,” tells Fergie.
“She knows exactly what she wants. Jack and Eugenie are very contemporary, they are very inclusive and they are all about love, and they want this wedding to be about that – to include everybody and to really absorb the love they have for each other with everybody.”
Fergie, who usually spends much of her time living in Verbier, Switzerland, but has been in England recently to help plan the wedding, reveals she hasn’t had a chance to shop for her outfit yet because she’s
been too busy. But one thing she knows for sure is she’ll have to organise having tissues on hand for the ceremony because she’s expecting to be emotional.
“I do understand why mothers cry at weddings now,” she says. “All my life I thought, ‘Oh, what’s she crying for?’ It’s lovely, it’s a great day.”
The duchess also recently praised Eugenie and her eldest daughter Princess Beatrice (30) for using their fame to shine a spotlight on the issue of modern slavery. The sisters attended a meeting at the United Nations in New York, hosted by Eugenie, to highlight a campaign raising awareness of global slavery.
“So proud of my girls,” Fergie wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of the sisters.
She was also proud of an interview the pair did with Vogue magazine. In it Eugenie says she and Beatrice are trendsetters because they are the first royal women to have independent careers and lives outside the royal family.
“We want to show people who we are as working, young royal women, but also not to be afraid of putting ourselves out there,” says Eugenie. “Nowadays it’s so easy to recoil when you see a perfect image on Instagram, but it’s important that it’s real. We’re real.”