In brief
The Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, has been officially dropped from her position as a patron of Julia's House, a children's hospice charity. This decision emerged after details of an email she sent in 2011 came to light, where she referred to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as her 'supreme friend'. The charity stated that it deemed her continued association inappropriate in light of the recent information. The email contradicted her previous public denouncement of Epstein, eliciting a spokesperson's statement that Ferguson is not commenting on the matter. The Duchess had previously been involved with the charity since 2018.
The Duchess of York has been removed as patron of a children's charity, in the wake of an email emerging in which she called sex offender Jeffrey Epstein her supreme friend.
Julia's House, a children's hospice charity serving families in Dorset and Wiltshire, has removed Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, from her role as patron.
Following the information shared this weekend on the Duchess of York's correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, Julia's House has taken the decision that it would be inappropriate for her to continue as a patron of the charity, said a charity spokesperson.
A spokesperson for the duchess said she was not commenting on the charity's decision.
The charity's ending of its links with the duchess follows the publication of an email from her to Epstein in 2011, which appears to have been sent after she had publicly broken off contact with him.
The email appeared to privately apologise for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.
That seemed to contradict her earlier public denunciation of Epstein in an interview in 2011, in which she had said her involvement with him had been a gigantic error of judgement and that: What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.
A spokesperson for the duchess said her subsequent email to Epstein, describing him as a friend, had been sent because she was trying to counter a threat from him to sue her for defamation - and that she still really regretted any association with him.
This email was sent in the context of advice the duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats, said a statement from her spokesman at the weekend, when the email to Epstein had been published.
The duchess became patron of the charity in 2018 and had visited one of its hospices, although she appears now to have been removed from the website, no longer appearing alongside other patrons, which include football manager Eddie Howe, actor Nigel Havers and designer Jasper Conran.
