The royals - Kitty Kelley [245]
Diana called Fergie to complain.
“The women are the worst,” moaned Fergie. “They’re so bitchy.” She made an exception for Ingrid Seward, the editor of Majesty magazine. “Ingie is okay, and her husband [columnist Ross Benson] is divine looking.” Diana did not share Fergie’s enthusiasm for Ross Benson because the columnist had declared himself firmly on the side of Charles in the war of the Waleses. She and Fergie agreed that they were much better treated by male writers than the females, except for gossip columnists such as Nigel Dempster. But both Diana and Fergie dismissed him as “an old woman.”
When Daily Telegraph journalist Victoria Mather described Fergie in one of her “famous rump-straining sad floral prints,” Fergie again picked up the phone and protested.
“This is the Duchess of York,” she announced grandly, “and I’d like to talk about your sweeping judgments.”
“Good afternoon, Your Highness,” said the journalist, switching on her tape recorder.
Fergie asked, “Why did you write such a scathing article?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued: “I understand that journalism—that you have to do your job—but to talk about people’s weight… and the size of their backsides and floral dresses… is so below the belt… so pathetic…. I still do so much good work… so much good work…. Nobody knows the good work I do….”
The reporter listened respectfully as the Duchess sounded ready to duke it out. She carried on for twenty minutes: “In this day and age, when the whole of Bosnia [is filled] with blind children and blind adults and you lower yourself to pull someone apart and [say] she’s got a big bottom. I mean it’s absolutely farcical… maybe you should come with me to Bosnia… and see then what is the real world and what real life is about. I mean, who cares whether someone is a size fourteen or size eighteen? Absolutely pathetic….”
Fergie cared desperately. She tried everything to lose weight—pills, diets, hypnotism. “I’ve even switched from white wine to red wine,” she told a friend, “so I could cut down on drinking.” Finally she sought out an “alternative healer” who gave her a nutritional plan and helped break her addiction to diet pills. After losing forty-two pounds, she emerged from his clinic—a hut in a field in Surrey—and announced her intention to become a professional model. “When I’m thin like this, my legs are better than the Princess of Wales’s,” she said gleefully. She hired a public relations agency and posed for photographers. Her picture, showing a newly slim and glamorously made up Fergie, appeared on the cover of Paris-Match. But London’s Sunday Times was not impressed: “A little more mascara around the eyes,” sniped the paper, “and the Chinese will be sending pandas to London for mating.”
The pounding Fergie took in the press made her defensive and defiant. “They might hate us here,” she told Diana, “but they love us in America.” Both women enjoyed their trips to the States, where they were treated like royalty, not royal discards. Diana, who appeared regularly in the United Kingdom wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with “U.S.A.,” skied in Colorado, shopped in New York City, and vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard. But Fergie came to the States to prospect for gold.
After selling her Budgie rights to a consortium in New Jersey for $3 million, she set up a nonprofit charity in Manhattan. With Chances for Children, Inc., she tried to re-create herself as a