The Duchess of York has been removed as patron of four charities after an email from 2011 emerged in which she called sex offender Jeffrey Epstein her “supreme friend”.
Julia’s House, a children’s hospice charity serving families in Dorset and Wiltshire, was the first to remove Sarah Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, saying it was “inappropriate” for her to continue in the role.
Later on Monday, the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, the Children’s Literacy Charity and Prevent Breast Cancer also announced they had dropped the duchess as patron.
A spokesperson for the duchess said she was not commenting on being asked to step down as a patron of Julia’s House. The BBC has since contacted them for further comment.
Food allergy charity the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation and the Children’s Literacy Charity – which helps disadvantaged children to improve their literacy skills – likewise said it was “inappropriate” for her to continue, but thanked her for her past support.
Prevent Breast Cancer also said the duchess was no longer a patron.
Another charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust, for which the duchess has been a patron for 35 years, says it is currently reviewing the situation.
The charities’ ending of links with the duchess follows the publication of an email from her to Epstein in 2011, which appears to have been sent after she had publicly claimed to have broken off contact with him.
The email appeared to privately apologise for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.”
That seemed to contradict her public denunciation of Epstein in an interview earlier that year, in which she had said her involvement with him had been a “gigantic error of judgement” and that: “What he did was wrong and for which he was rightly jailed.”
A spokesperson for the duchess said her subsequent email to Epstein, describing him as a friend, had been sent because she was trying to counter a threat from him to sue her for defamation – and that she still really regretted any association with him.
“This email was sent in the context of advice the duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats,” said a statement from her spokesman at the weekend, when the email to Epstein had been published.
The email exchange was several years after Epstein’s jailing for sex offences in 2008.
The duchess became patron of the Julia’s House charity in 2018 and had visited one of its hospices, although she appears now to have been removed from the website, no longer appearing alongside other patrons, which include football manager Eddie Howe, actor Nigel Havers and designer Jasper Conran.
The hospice charity helps children with “life-shortening and life-threatening conditions”, supporting them and their families.
Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and ex-husband of the duchess, stood down as a working royal and lost his royal patronages after challenges over his association with Epstein, including in a BBC Newsnight interview in 2019.
The contact with Epstein had continued after he had been released from jail – with Prince Andrew being photographed with Epstein in New York’s Central Park in 2010.
There has been increasing pressure in the US for the release of any information about Epstein and his famous connections, which has seen more details emerging, including messages sent to him in alleged “birthday book”.
Epstein died by suicide in jail in New York in 2019, while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
