Royal author Andrew Lownie defended his decision to share an allegation that Sarah Ferguson had a “friends with benefits” relationship with disgraced mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.
“I stand by it,” Lownie, 64, told London’s The Times on Saturday, May 9. “It’s fully sourced with former employees of P Diddy and Sarah Ferguson.”
Lownie made the allegation about Ferguson and Diddy’s alleged sexual relationship in the expanded edition of his book Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, the 2025 tell-all that kicked off a new round of controversy over Ferguson and her ex-husband Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s connections to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In this new paperback edition of Entitled, Lownie alleged that Ferguson, 66, and Diddy, 58, met at a 2002 party thrown by Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell and that they began a sexual relationship two years later. (Epstein died by suicide at age 66 in August 2019 after being arrested on federal sex crimes charges. Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-year prison sentence following her 2022 conviction on sex trafficking-related offences.)
A portion of Entitled serialized in The Daily Mail claimed that Diddy bragged to colleagues about sleeping with Ferguson and allegedly once said “he could not wait until Fergie’s daughters come of age.” (Ferguson and Mountbatten-Windsor, 66, share two daughters: Princess Beatrice, 37, and Princess Eugenie, 35.)
The author claimed that Ferguson introduced both of her daughters to Diddy during a yacht party weekend in 2006. (Eugenie was 16 years old at the time.)
Lownie also wrote that Ferguson and Diddy met multiple times at hotels in Africa and Europe, including once staying at a seven-star hotel that cost £50,000 per night.
Us Weekly has reached out to representatives for Diddy and Ferguson for comment.
Diddy is currently serving a 50-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Fort Dix in New Jersey after his 2025 conviction of two counts of transportation for prostitution. (He was acquitted on the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy following an eight-week trial.)
Sarah Ferguson; Diddy Getty Images (2); Julia Reinhart; Ethan Miller
Lownie made numerous shocking claims about Ferguson in the hardcover edition of Entitled, including that she was “obsessed” with Kevin Costner and had crushes on both George Clooney and Tiger Woods. (There is no insinuation that anything ever happened between Ferguson and any of the three men mentioned.)
The author accused Mounbatten-Windsor of sleeping with “more than a dozen women” before he’d even celebrated his first wedding anniversary with Ferguson in the 1980s.
The book further explored alleged troubles in Ferguson and Mountbatten-Windsor’s marriage prior to their 1992 separation. Per Lownie, Ferguson allegedly told friends that the then-prince was “never there when I need him” and simply was “just not strong enough.”
Entitled’s allegations about the now-former Duke and Duchess of York’s ties to Epstein began a series of new scandals that led to Mountbatten-Windsor being stripped of his royal titles by King Charles III in late 2025. (Ferguson has stopped using her royal titles in deference to her former husband.)
Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office for allegedly passing confidential financial information to Epstein when he was a U.K. trade envoy from 2001 to 2011. The former prince has not entered a plea.
If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
