Skip to main content

2. A major life change

Young Sarah Ferguson
Young Sarah Ferguson | Instagram via RoyallyFergie

In 1975 when the duchess was 16 years old, her parents divorced and her mother remarried an Argentinian man named Hector Barrantes. Ferguson’s mom jumped up and moved to South America leaving her daughters behind in England at her father’s estate, Dummer Down Farm. In 1976, Major Ferguson married Susan Deptford, and the couple went on to have three more children, Andrew, Alice, and Elizabeth.

Perhaps the duchess is such a fearsome mother to her daughters because she never wants them to feel as if they don’t matter or that she values something more than them.

Next: A sparkling personality