Sarah Ferguson just lost a royal-era honor she'd held for nearly four decades. Councillors in York voted unanimously on Thursday to revoke the former Duchess of York's Freedom of the City, an accolade she received in 1987, the year after she married Prince Andrew, per the BBC. The move follows renewed scrutiny of her long-standing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, fueled by this year's release of millions of US Justice Department documents. While appearing in those records doesn't itself imply criminal behavior, Labour leader for York's Council, Claire Douglas, said the city expects honorees to reflect its "values and behaviors," and that those who kept ties with Epstein after his crimes "fall well short" of that bar.
"We don't expect recipients of York's highest honor to be saints. We simply do not want them to be best friends of convicted pedophiles," said Liberal Democrat Councillor Darryl Smalley, per the Times of London. Andrew lost his own Freedom of the City in 2022, and most of his other remaining titles in recent years, over his Epstein links, per the BBC. Ferguson, who faced charity defections after a 2011 email calling Epstein her "supreme friend" surfaced, is now under growing pressure from US politicians and others to give evidence about their relationship. In other emails, she called Epstein a "legend" and the "brother I have always wished for," per the Independent. Her representatives have so far declined to comment, and there's no legal way to compel her testimony in the US.
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