Sarah Ferguson has been photographed hiding out in a £2,000-a-night ski chalet in Austria, as pressure mounts on the former duchess to give evidence to US Congress on her links with Jeffrey Epstein.
Ferguson, 66, was pictured emerging from a blacked-out Mercedes near her chalet on Wednesday. It is the first time that Ferguson, formerly the Duchess of York, has been seen in seven months, after she went to ground following the release of the Epstein files.
A source told The Sun: “Fergie has been keeping an incredibly low profile while high up in the Alps. She hasn’t been seen for a long time and has clearly wanted to keep it that way.
“The area is absolutely beautiful and it’s very quiet most of the time, so it’s the perfect place for a high-profile figure such as her to lie low.”
The last time Ferguson was officially seen in public was when she attended theDuchess of Kent’s funeralin Westminster Cathedral on September 16 last year. She was photographed a week later leaving her home in Windsor.
She is said to have left Royal Lodge at the start of February, two weeks before her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in connection with his ties to Epstein.
US politicians have asked Ferguson to testify to Congress over her “close personal and business ties” to Epstein, but she has yet to respond. Six companies linked to the former duchess, including the Sarah’s Trust charity, have been shut down in the wake of theEpstein files’ publication.
The former duchess was stripped of her royal title last year alongside Andrew. Last month, she was stripped of thefreedom of the City of Yorkafter councillors voted unanimously to remove the title.
Correspondence between Ferguson and Epstein, dated after she claimed to have ended contact with him, appeared among the millions of pages of documents released by the US Department of Justice.
Emails between her office and Epstein’s appear to show her asking him to pay for flights for her and her daughters to visit him in the US after his release from prison. One email in 2011 appeared to describe Epstein as a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to her and her family. Ferguson said that her connection with him was an error of judgment.
In February Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released without charge under investigation and has denied any wrongdoing.
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