Sarah Ferguson might be back in the U.K. after hiding abroad for nearly a year, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to be out and about with her family. According to royal commentator Phil Dampier, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have quietly been visiting their mother at her new rental home, but they’re not in a rush to associate with her publicly.
The former Duchess of York is reportedly living in a house in England’s Home Counties (the areas surrounding London), and Dampier told Hello! magazine that Ferguson’s daughters have kept a low profile.
"Friends tell me they have both been to see her at her new house in the past couple of weeks,” he said. “I don't think they want to be seen with her in public at the moment, and she probably realizes it's not a good idea either, but behind the scenes they are talking and trying to be supportive."
Ferguson has been missing in action amid the fallout from her friendship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She was stripped of her Duchess of York title at the same time her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, lost his prince and Duke of York titles, and they were evicted from their longtime home, Royal Lodge, early this year.
Because of their parents’ scandals, Beatrice and Eugenie have largely stayed out of the public eye, with the sisters occasionally spotted at family events like Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling's June wedding.
"They're very embarrassed and are obviously sort of reevaluating their own lives and their own contacts and the things they get involved with because they don't want to be tainted by scandal,” Dampier said.
The York sisters were famously close to both of their parents, especially Ferguson, but according to Dampier, “I don't think the relationship is quite as close as it used to be, certainly.”
"I think the days of them being the tripod and inseparable have been fragmented,” he said. “They have grown up and gone their own ways a bit, and they've got their separate lives and separate families."