Shamed duchess opens heart to Oprah

CHICAGO – Sarah Ferguson said that her own self-hatred, mounting debts and “gross stupidity” had led her to fall for a filmed…

CHICAGO – Sarah Ferguson said that her own self-hatred, mounting debts and “gross stupidity” had led her to fall for a filmed sting by a journalist in which she appeared to offer to sell access to her former husband, Britain’s Prince Andrew.

“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,” the Duchess of York told talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.

Ms Ferguson's appearance, aired yesterday, was her first interview since the video was posted on the website of the News of the Worldlast month and she used The Oprah Winfrey Showas many have done before – to chastise herself very publicly for her actions.

In the video, played to Ms Ferguson during her interview, she appears to ask for and accept £27,000 in cash in exchange for access to the prince, who acts as Britain’s special representative for international trade and investment.

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Then she asks for another £500,000 – what she told Winfrey was a “a long shot” and an amount she pulled “out of the sky”. “Poor love, I feel sorry for her. I feel really sorry for her. Sad, really,” Ms Ferguson, her eyes rimmed red, said while the tape played.

“You look at the devil in the face, which you do. Then you forgive, and you say, ‘OK, I’ve made almost a mistake that will never be forgotten,’ and forgive,” she added. Ms Ferguson told Winfrey she was “in the gutter” during the sting, the culmination of what she called a lengthy downward spiral.

She was “substantially” in debt and did not deny her 1996 divorce settlement from Andrew paid her a modest £20,000 pounds a year. “That’s why I must look at bankruptcy. I was spiralling so out of control, I was looking for the quick fixes, places, where I wouldn’t normally look,” she said. – (Reuters)