Fergie is touring US TV studios flogging her newest romance novel and may even ... trends now

This week it was all smiles and sycophancy in the studio of ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA), as the most popular U.S. breakfast TV show re-acquainted viewers with an old and titled friend.

‘Long before she was a novelist, she was the red-headed rebel who married a prince and became Princess Diana’s sister and sidekick,’ explained interviewer Juju Chang, who couldn’t hide her excitement at the prospect of talking to a woman who had ‘infused her mighty spirit into her really engaging novels’.

And then viewers saw that mighty spirit, Sarah, Duchess of York, walking through a smart bookshop before sitting down to chat about her latest Mills & Boon romantic novel, entitled A Most Intriguing Lady.

U.S. breakfast television is a gift to the gaffe-prone and scandal-plagued, as you can spout any old nonsense and presenters will just nod sympathetically.

Sure enough, the duchess’s GMA interviewer didn’t even flinch when she cringingly started to refer to herself in the third person.

‘Sarah is cheeky, is feisty — yeah, yeah —is rebellious,’ the duchess said, as she confirmed that her book’s red-headed heroine, Lady Mary, is based on her.

‘I feel liberated . . . I’m really, truly authentic Sarah now,’ she said, adding that she wasn’t sure if this was because the Queen had died but ‘I now think I can just sort of say openly what I want to say without worrying I’m going to offend somebody’.

The duchess was not sufficiently ‘liberated’, however, to say anything remotely significant about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, or Prince Andrew’s dealings with his late paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein, during her U.S. media blitz.

‘This redhead’ was ‘not good at conforming’, she declared, although — in case viewers were about to lump her together with Meghan Markle — she quickly added that she ‘absolutely’ believes in the institution of the monarchy and ‘totally supports’ the King and the Queen Consort.

The late Queen was deeply popular in the U.S. and the 63-year-old duchess’s endless references to the closeness of their relationship have been, frankly, shameless. 

She told GMA that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal brought her closer to the Queen ‘as we were [Andrew’s] bookends during the last three years and she really was my idol . . . my legend’.

The duchess confirmed that she is now the keeper of the royal corgis, which ‘bark into the air and I think the Queen’s with me when they do’, adding, in what may strike many as a particularly outrageous plug for her book: ‘One of the last things I said was, “Well, what would you like me to do?” and she said, “Keep writing.” ’

When her interviewer suggested that this meant she was writing ‘by royal command’, she replied — looking entirely serious — ‘I like to think that’.

It was all classic Fergie flannel. But the U.S. media cannot get enough of an Americanophile who shed 50lb — and the cruel nickname ‘Duchess of Pork’ — during a stint as a well-paid Weight Watchers ambassador in the U.S. in the late 1990s.

Such is her profile here that she is even rumoured to be presenting an award at tomorrow’s Oscars (after all, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic is a strong award contender and the Duchess recently spoke at her friend Lisa-Marie Presley’s Graceland memorial service).

This time, however, there is a new sense of purpose in her tireless self-promotion. For she insists that since Prince Andrew is no longer undertaking royal duties and so is no longer funded by the taxpayer, his ex-wife — who still lives in a wing of his Windsor mansion as a ‘guest’ — is now in a position to help bear the financial burden.

Ironically, with the duke in such disgrace, the woman who was once accused of trying to sell access to him for £500,000 to undercover reporters is now the acceptable — or at least, the more acceptable — face of the York family.

‘Since he stepped back [from royal duties] he doesn’t actually take taxpayers’ money,’ she told Hello! magazine of the ‘poor’ duke, who faces not only having to move out of his 31-room Windsor residence, Royal Lodge, but also the loss of his £249,000 annual grant as the King slims down the monarchy. 

‘And I’m in a position where I can support him and the rest of the family through my work. And I’m really pleased and proud to do that.’

This is surprising news from a royal hanger-on long accused of being an outrageous sponger who, despite separating from the duke as long ago as 1992, has consistently refused to live within her means.

It’s almost as surprising, in fact, as her claim on Good Morning America that she spent years with the Royal Family and knows how to conduct herself. ‘I know the rules,’ she told the programme firmly.

Good manners must have prevented her hosts from mentioning the many times over the years when the duchess has been accused of mortifying the Royal Family with cack-handed attempts to make money.

But people close to the duchess insist that this time it really is different. The woman who in 2011 admitted she was ‘continually on the verge of financial bankruptcy’ after losing more than £3.2 million in the collapse of Hartmoor, her U.S. ‘lifestyle and wellness’ company, is finally on a solid footing. ‘People throw that one quote back from an Oprah Winfrey interview that she is constantly on the brink of bankruptcy,’ a friend of the duchess told the Mail. ‘The truth is that she is a successful writer

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