Eugenie in exile: ‘Ashamed’ princess is spotted in Qatar as her father faces police probe and mother Fergie goes missing in action
Princess Eugenie has left the UK for Qatar where she has appeared in public for the first time since the Epstein scandal engulfed her parents.
The 35-year-old mother of two is a director of art dealer Hauser & Wirth and was working at a high-end contemporary art fair in Doha this week.
Eugenie had gone to ground since the Epstein Files were released ten days ago but has popped up on a job in the Gulf.
A picture of her at work was posted online just as her cousin Prince William and uncle King Charles issued unprecedented statements expressing their ‘concern’ about mounting allegations about her father.
Charles has said he and Buckingham Palace are willing to ‘support’ police in any investigation into Andrew, who is accused of leaking confidential data to his paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein when the ex-prince was a UK trade envoy.
Despite the scandal, Eugenie smiled as model Caroline Daur, 30, put a comforting arm around the princess, who along with her older sister Beatrice was dragged into Epstein’s orbit by their mother and father.
Sarah Ferguson, who has not been seen for weeks, took them as teenagers to meet Epstein days after he was released from jail for child prostitution offences and toe-curling emails from Fergie even talked about her youngest daughter’s sex life.
Beatrice and Eugenie are said to be ‘aghast’ at their mother’s embarrassing tranche of emails. Sources close to the sisters also said they are also ‘appalled’ and ’embarrassed’ about the photos of their father crouching over a mystery woman lying on the floor.
On Monday Andrew’s once close friend Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions over her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein at a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill. The jailed British socialite appeared virtually before lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee for less than an hour on Monday.
Understandably, Eugenie looked slightly jaded in the photo posted yesterday on Instagram by her German influencer friend Caroline, who dated Romeo Beckham and is now going out with Russian tennis star Alexander Zverev.
Eugenie is pictured with friend Caroline Daur, 30, working at an art fair in Qatar this week – the first time she has been seen in public since the Epstein Files
Andrew leering over an unidentified woman was released in the latest tranche of the Epstein documents that brought more shame on his family
The Duke and Duchess of York are divorced but have remained very close to their daughters. While the latest Epstein scandal has put more pressure on their relationship, the Princesses are said to remain supportive as they can be to their parents in private, especially their mother
Ghislaine Maxwell was seen pleading the fifth as she faced questions from the House Oversight Committee in her beige prison uniform yesterday
Ms Daur, known as Caro to her friends, tagged Eugenie at Art Basel 2026, with the caption: ‘REUNION!!! It’s been too long’. The annual art fair in Qatar was also attended by David Beckham and Angeline Jolie.
They were stood in front of Philip Guston’s artwork Conversation, which last sold at auction in 2007 for around $2.6million. Guston said it was a representation of his own restlessness and raw emotions in life.
Earlier this week the Daily Mail revealed how Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are said to be standing by their mother despite the catastrophic damage her emails to Jeffrey Epstein have caused them.
The sisters have not given up on their father either and are staying ‘loyal to their parents in private while separating themselves in public’, a royal source has said.
‘The Yorks are just about holding it together as a family but this has put new strains on their relationships’, an insider added.
‘The last I heard the daughters were still supporting both parents behind the scenes’.
The sisters are said to be ‘aghast’ and ’embarrassed’ by what the Epstein Files have revealed about their parents’ relationship with such an ‘appalling’ man.
The royal insider said they love their parents, leaving them in a terrible ‘bind’ because Andrew and Fergie have dragged them into Epstein’s world and ‘contaminated’ their own brands.
‘Eugenie, for example, is co-founder of The Anti-Slavery Collective, a charity that campaigns to end modern slavery, which includes sex trafficking. How can she do that without saying anything about Epstein, Virginia Giuffre, and this new case of a woman who claims she was trafficked to have sex with Andrew?’, the source said.
Sarah Ferguson told Jeffrey Epstein she wanted to marry him and took her children to meet him in the US just days after his release from jail for soliciting children for sex, documents published in the US revealed this week.
Fergie, who also discussed her daughters’ love and sex lives with her ‘pillar’ of strength Epstein over email, has not been seen in public since the scandal broke.
Andrew is already in Sandringham, while Fergie has gone into hiding and is rumoured to be jetting abroad.
The insider added: ‘Beatrice and Eugenie are in a bind.
‘I think they should say something but I doubt they will because of their need to stay loyal to their parents in private while separating themselves in public’.
The King insists they’ve done nothing wrong but, inevitably, their personal ‘brands’ have been contaminated by the actions of their parents.
Fergie is said to want to stay in the Windsor area and won’t move to Sandringham with her ex-husband Andrew.
‘I know she was looking at a few options and hoped to stay in the Windsor area but this forced move has come sooner than expected’.
Fergie has nowhere to go – but it has long been rumoured her daughters have offered her a place to stay abroad in the shape of Eugenie’s Portuguese villa.
Beatrice has a granny annex at her Cotswolds home.
A visit to her sister in Australia could also be on the cards.
But Ms Ferguson will need something permanent.
The source said: ‘Fergie did sell her Belgravia mews house for £3.85 million in August so in theory has that money to use for somewhere else to live. But that house was bought as an investment for Beatrice and Eugenie.
‘The late Queen gave Fergie money for her granddaughters as part of the divorce settlement. I don’t know for sure but I think that may be what was used to buy that house’.
Andrew and Fergie’s youngest daughter posed with a number of people at the Doha art event in her role as a director of Hauser & Wirth
Eugenie has been on a low key work trip to Qatar
David Beckham and Angelina Jolie were also at the art fair in Doha this week
Sarah Ferguson’s contact with Epstein has shredded what was left of her reputation.
She even sent a flirty email to him describing a ‘single’ female friend with ‘a great body’ he should get to know after he was convicted of child sex crimes.
The former Duchess of York also suggested in a personal email to the paedophile that he could marry her and they could take on the mystery woman as a member of their staff.
Documents released in the Epstein Files also show that he was asked to pay almost $15,000 for flights for Fergie, Beatrice and Eugenie to fly to the US to visit him just 48 hours after his release from prison.
Ms Ferguson would be happy to fly from Heathrow to the US in business class but her daughters would be in economy, the email sent on July 24, 2009, said.
Fergie told the sex offender he should marry her on a number of occasions in the months after he left jail following a 13-month sentence for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
In one email from September 17, 2009, she wrote about one woman: ‘You can marry her too. She is single and [sic] a great body’. She added: ‘Ok well marry me and then we will employ her’.
The new emails also shed new light on a lunch that Fergie had with Epstein and her two daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie after his time behind bars.
On July 24, 2009, two days after her boss left prison, Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff emailed him asking him to approve payment for the Yorks’ travel costs.
She wrote: ‘Regarding the flights for The Duchess and the girls from Heathrow to Miami and from NY to Heathrow: we are able to get the girls on economy round trip and The Duchess in business round trip. The girls flights total are $4835.94 and The Duchess’ flights total $9244.16. Do I have your permission to purchase these tickets!?’.
It is not known what Epstein replied or if he paid the bill – but Sarah and her daughters did make the trip to America.
Sarah Ferguson, pictured with a mystery woman in the Epstein Files, has seen her reputation further shredded
Sarah Ferguson, pictured in the Epstein files with a mystery female, told the paedophile financier about a woman he knew who was single and had a great body
Fergie again said Epstein should marry her but he did not respond
The email from September 2009 from Ms Ferguson to Jeffrey Epstein describes the woman with a ‘great body’ before suggesting they marry
On July 24, 2009, two days after her boss left prison, Epstein’s assistant Lesley Groff emailed him asking him to approve payment for the Yorks’ travel costs
The Daily Mail revealed today how Fergie sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein claiming that ‘no woman has ever left the Royal family with her head’ and that she was being ‘1000 per cent hung out to dry’ after appearing to accept cash for access to her ex-husband.
The former Duchess of York said in July 2010 that she was ‘totally on my own now’ and was about to be ‘exterminated’ in the UK due to a series of personal scandals.
The Palace couldn’t ‘behead’ her so ‘will discredit me – totally to obliteration’, she said in a nod to the executions of Henry VIII’s wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
Ms Ferguson had written to the paedophile financier in the weeks after she was caught in a tabloid sting appearing to accept $500,000 in return for her securing access to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then a UK trade envoy.
She then agreed to an interview with Oprah Winfrey where she spoke about how she was facing bankruptcy and could not pay the rent so had taken a room in her ex-husband’s Royal Lodge home.
In an attack on the royals as her reputation was in tatters and she ran out of money, Fergie thanked her friend Epstein for being her ‘pillar’ in an email released in the Epstein Files.
She added: ‘Just as I always said, no woman has ever left the Royal Family with her head, and the [sic] cannot behead me, therefore they will discredit me. Totally to obliteration. I have no words.’
