Duchess’ Spokeswoman Calls New Book ‘Ludicrous’

The book that the duchess of York tried to ban portrays her as driven by “fear and lust” into an increasingly desperate life of sex, debt and off-the-wall fantasies about her future.

“Fergie: Her Secret Life” by Allan Starkie (Publishers Group West, $23) says that the duchess was so broke that she flirted with an Arab prince who was willing to pay her debts in exchange for sex. After a kiss at dinner, he sent her a check for $750,000, the book claims.

Starkie, an American, was a business partner of Johnny Bryan - the Texan who became Sarah Ferguson’s lover and “financial adviser.” The duchess tried to block the book last month, but gave up when English courts demanded she raise $750,000 to pay possible legal costs.

Starkie - who kept a secret diary as he traveled with Fergie as a confidant - says she had rough sex with Bryan and enjoyed it when he would call her “slut” and “tart.”

Her daughters, Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, were distressed by the couple’s loud arguments, the book says. On one occasion, Beatrice yelled at Bryan, “Don’t shout at Mummy!”

Starkie says Fergie told him that if it weren’t for her daughters, “the only answer would be to kill myself.” But the duchess’ spokeswoman in London called this story and the rest of the book “absolutely ludicrous.”

“It’s unfortunate that someone like Allan Starkie would trade on a friendship he had with the duchess,” she said.

Starkie says that after Prince Charles narrowly escaped harm in a Swiss avalanche, the duchess fantasized that he would die.

She called Princess Diana to warn her of Charles’ likely demise and imagined that her then-husband Andrew would become Prince Regent.

Starkie says Fergie would down vodkas and wine every night. “Her cigarette butts littered the house, despite her desperate attempts to give up…. She looked as though her soul had gone.”