My mastectomy helped me after the Diana comparisons

Royal family

by Leah Betsky

August 31, 2023 | 12:23 p.m

A mastectomy helped Sarah Ferguson find self-love after years of being heavily compared to Princess Diana.

The Duchess of York, 63, described her operation to be diagnosed with breast cancer as a “wake up” moment to “stop hating yourself” and “stop not liking yourself”. Wednesday’s episode of the ‘Tea Chats with the Duchess and Sarah’ podcast..

Ferguson admitted, “When I look back, you know, I was fine… I had good legs and I looked good, and I didn’t like myself, and that was because, you know, I was always compared to Diana.” .

She added, “I think in the end, my journalism came true, which, you know, isn’t very good.”

Prince Andrew’s ex-wife admitted that it would take “cutting off part of her body” for her to “wake up and stop worrying, stop self-hate, stop self-doubt, stop all that stuff.” Stop not liking yourself.”

Sarah shared how lucky she was that her sister, Jane Ferguson, urged her to get a mammogram and that her doctors caught the cancer before it was too late.

“The greatest luck in my life is to have a wonderful sister… She told me to get a mammogram because that was the thing that saved my life,” she said.

The new podcast host also recalled the last piece of advice the late Queen Elizabeth II gave her, which was to “be yourself.”

She saw it. “I got very upset when I wasn’t myself,” Sarah said of the Queen, who died in September 2022 at the age of 96. “That’s probably when I started eating more pickles.”

She continued: “But now I am myself, and I am very lucky to be able to be myself. It is very difficult. What a journey.”

The Most Interesting Lady author – who was married to Andrew, 63, from 1986 to 1996 – enjoyed a close friendship with Diana before the 36-year-old Princess of Wales’ fatal car crash in 1997.

Sarah and Diana have often been photographed together at royal events, and the Duchess has publicly discussed their complicated relationship.

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“We promised each other that we would always be together, and there was never any light between us.” He told people in 2021. “But everyone wanted (to see the runner) because we were so strong together. People want to break something very strong.”

However, Sarah admitted to feuding with the late ex-wife of King Charles III for a year in a 2007 interview with Harper’s Bazaar.

“The saddest thing in the end was that we didn’t speak for a year, although I never knew why,” she told the magazine.

“I tried, I wrote letters, thinking it doesn’t matter what happened, let’s sort it out. And I knew she would come back. In fact, the day before she died I called a friend of mine and said, ‘Where’s that red? I want to talk to her.'”

Sarah – who has daughters Princess Beatrice, 35, and Princess Eugenie, 33, with the disgraced Duke of York – revealed in June that she had to undergo surgery after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

She is recovering at her home at Royal Lodge in Windsor, where she resides with her ex-husband despite being divorced nearly 30 years ago.

“She has had a lot of support, and her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, have been very supportive, as has Andrew,” a source told Page Six at the time.

Sarah has maintained a strong relationship with the royal family, despite being excluded from the guest list for Charles’ coronation in May.