Sarah Ferguson paid tribute to Princess Diana on her birthday.
Ferguson paid tribute to the late princess on Instagram on what would have been her 63rd birthday. The former princess posted a photo of the pair smiling, standing side by side on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the Battle of Britain Memorial Parade in September 1990.
“Happy Birthday to my dear friend Diana. You were a pillar of light and love and the legacy you leave behind is amazing,” she wrote in the caption. “I will forever remember our laughter and the friendly, kind heart I found in you. I know you are always watching over us. Rest in peace my friend.”
The two were close during their time as members of the royal family, when Diana was married to Prince Charles and Ferguson was married to Prince Andrew, but their friendship goes back much further than that, first meeting when Diana was 14 and Ferguson was 15.
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Sarah Ferguson celebrated the late Princess Diana’s birthday in an Instagram post. (Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images)
“Her mother and my mother went to school together and were best friends,” Ferguson said on her podcast, “Tea Talk with the Duchess and Sarah,” in June 2023. “And Diana is my fourth cousin. It’s just so amazing that we came together.”
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The two joined the royal family just a few years apart: Diana married the now-Prince Charles in July 1981, and Ferguson married Prince Andrew just five years later, in July 1986.
Ferguson, who became the Duchess of York after marrying Prince Andrew, admitted on the podcast that she often looked to Princess Diana for guidance in how to do things.
“I remember the first time I became a princess with Dutch. [Diana’s nickname]”I watched her perform in her room and I copied her, I copied what she did because she was so amazing,” she explained. “She just put her heart into it right away. She put her heart into it, she put her energy into it, she left it all out the door.”
Both Ferguson and Diana eventually divorced their royal husbands. (Jane Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)
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Both women ultimately divorced their husbands in 1996, with Diana and Charles’ divorce finalized in August of that year and Ferguson and Andrew’s in May.
Just a year later, Princess Diana was tragically killed in a car crash in Paris at the age of 36. Her funeral was broadcast live around the world, with an estimated 2.5 billion people watching, as young Princes William and Harry walked behind their mother’s coffin.
“There’s nothing in the world like this,” Prince William said of his mother’s death in the HBO documentary Diana: Her Life and Legacy in 2017. “Absolutely nothing. It’s like an earthquake hits your home, your life, everything. Your mind is completely torn apart. It took me a while to actually comprehend it.”
Prince William spoke at the Diana Award ceremony at the Science Museum in London in March 2024. He said the program’s main goal is to inspire people who are working to create humanitarian and social change. website.
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Prince William remembered his mother during his speech at the Diana Award ceremony in March 2024. (Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)
Speaking at the ceremony, Prince William spoke about the legacy his mother left to the nation and to him personally.
“She taught me that everyone has the potential to give something back, and that everyone in life who is in need deserves support,” he said. “That legacy is something that Catherine and I have tried to focus on through our work, as well as the 50,000 young people who have received the Diana Award over the past 25 years.”
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