Prince Harry’s aunt has awkwardly avoided a question about him in an interview on US TV. Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York (known affectionately as Fergie) on The Sherri Show.
The Duchess appeared on the daytime talk show Sherri with actress Sherri Shepherd to discuss her new book. She talks about the Queen’s passing and nipple tassels but side-steps a question about her nephew Prince Harry.
The royal is the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, the Queen’s second eldest son and Prince William and Harry’s aunt. Harry is reportedly close to her daughter Princess Eugenie.
When asked about her nephew, who caused worldwide headlines with the revelations in his autobiography Spare, she changed the topic of conversation, despite being very chatty on other topics.
Body language expert Judi James told Express: “Fergie shows off her outrageous skills of marketing and self-promotion here, plugging her book and several other projects like a pro.
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“People in the UK might not recognize this version of Fergie, the woman who used to spend Christmas exiled to the lodge house and who sat in front of the late Queen and Philip at her daughter’s wedding feeling their stony gaze boring into the back of her head.
“This Fergie is described here as ‘ROYALTY royalty’ and describes herself as ‘Anglo-American’. Working the audience as Harry did at the start, she leans forward with her hands clasped between her legs, nodding in enthusiasm at the verbal royal glow-up she is getting from the host.”
The Duchess seems happy to talk about her late mother-in-law with Sherri. Judi said: “When the late Queen is mentioned Fergie is full of enthusiasm and first-person anecdotes. She calls the Queen “my mother-in-law” although she even upgrades that to “my first mother” later on.
She is so keen to promote the closeness of her relationship with the late Queen that she even becomes her during her anecdote about the corgis, miming breaking their biscuits with ‘her little hands’ and speaking of how they would ‘walk a lot and talk a lot openly’ as though Fergie was the Queen’s regular confidant rather than her exiled ex daughter-in-law.”
However, when it comes to Harry, the Duchess is less vocal. Judi said: “Her desire to speak openly and even outrageously (Harry spoke a lot about his penis to sell Spare and for Fergie, it is nipples and nipple tassels) only hits the buffers when Harry’s name is mentioned.
“Fergie holds her body pose at this point but she sucks her lips in to signal she is not keen to speak on that subject. Like any good politician would she swerves around it but avoids mention of him and instead uses the show-stopping phrase ‘Diana and I…’ as a distraction.
“Her next gesture is a two-finger point that suggests she is now conducting the interview to move it back to her products and to royals who are no longer with us to contest any of her claims.”
