EXCLUSIVE: How Sarah Ferguson ‘Lived Like a Henry VIII-Style Hog’ While Married to Prince Andrew — Gorging on Meat Feasts Every Day and Racking Up $4MILLION in Debts

The Duchess of York was the “Duchess of Greed” – who gorged on slabs of meat every day, had a butler put her watercress on ice and racked up millions in debts, a new book sensationally claims.

RadarOnline.com can reveal the tome, based on four years of research and hundreds of interviews, depicts Sarah Ferguson’s life as a swirl of extravagance, unpaid bills, questionable charity deals and roast dinners fit for a Tudor monarch.

The royal family has tried to stop the publication of renowned historian Andrew Lownie’s Entitled, about the rise and fall of Fergie and her shamed husband, Prince Andrew, now a royal exile and recluse thanks to his scandalous relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

But RadarOnline.com has seen advanced extracts from the book, on shelves later this month, and can reveal Lownie claims Ferguson routinely demanded whole sides of beef, legs of lamb and roast chickens for her nightly dinners – food that often went untouched and was discarded the next day.

A source backed up his claims, telling us she devoured feasts that would make Henry VIII proud. But her excesses went way beyond food.

Lownie’s book says her royal butler was forced to begin his day at 4.30am to chill watercress on ice for the duchess, now 65, while personal trainers and hairdressers were paid hundreds of pounds an hour to wait until she emerged – sometimes not until the late afternoon.

Ferguson’s lavish lifestyle continued even as her debts spiraled out of control. At one point in the mid-1990s, she owed as much as $5.3million to around 200 creditors, according to Lownie.

His book said an internal audit found her annual spending exceeded $1.1million, including $400,000 on staff, $200,000 on gifts, and $67,000 on parties and flowers.

In just one week, she spent $33,000 in Bloomingdale’s and $4,000 on a champagne tea party for 150 removal men.

She lived in a series of grand homes – including an eight-bedroom estate with a chauffeur’s flat, tennis court and a gipsy caravan for her daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

According to the book, her American charity, Chances for Children, operated more like her private office. Less than half of its income went to beneficiaries, with the rest used for personal staff, perfume sourcing and booking diet doctors.

She was regularly bailed out by others. Lownie reports Queen Elizabeth II personally paid off several of Ferguson’s debts – including a demand from her bank Coutts for $665,000 in 1994.

But even royal patience wore thin. A Palace statement in 1996 said the Duchess’s finances were no longer Her Majesty’s concern.

Friends and staff also grew weary. One aide described the toxic environment by saying: "Car journeys were the worst. She’d sit on the phone screaming at employees. Then she’d wonder why we were unhappy."

By the late 1990s, Ferguson had become the first royal to appear in a television commercial – promoting Ocean Spray cranberry juice for $500,000. She also endorsed hair straighteners on QVC, reportedly earning six figures for her appearances.

Yet, Lownie writes, Ferguson remained in denial about her financial strife.

One friend recounted her explosive reaction to seeing a bank letter, saying: “She just doesn’t want to know.”

As late as 2010, she had amassed new debts – including a $9,000 unpaid bill for a pastel portrait of her daughters. She lived with up to 22 staff and continued spending thousands on travel, luxury goods and spa treatments, even while her companies collapsed and creditors circled.

Lownie said: “The story of Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is, like Prince Andrew, marked by ambition and financial recklessness.

“The bubbly young redhead was initially seen as a breath of fresh air when she married him in 1986, but her exploitation of her royal status to make money has seen her join her ex-husband as a hugely diminished figure.

“She partied, she took lovers, she was indiscreet, causing Princess Margaret to tell the duchess: ‘You have done more to bring shame on the Royal Family than could ever have been imagined. Clearly you have never considered the damage you are doing us all. How dare you discredit us?’”

He went on: “But what was every bit as astonishing was her extravagant lifestyle, her excess. She spent money on an epic and often mindless scale, money that more often than not she did not have.

“This particularly came to light after her separation from Andrew in 1992. In the summer of 1994, she rented Domaine La Fontaine near Cannes for $26,600.

“Though it was dubbed self-catering, she was accompanied by a butler, two housekeepers, a dresser, a general assistant and a nanny. Two other assistants flew in and out; two Scotland Yard protection officers were there to protect the royal daughters.”

One holidaymaker who met Ferguson on a break told Lownie: “It was just non-stop partying. She kept wanting to throw parties and stay up all night. She organized one bash and spent hours telling dirty jokes. It was most uncomfortable.

“By November 1995, by her own admission, Sarah's debts exceeded $4.9million and she needed bank approval to pay even modest checks.

“But even then, according to a member of her staff, she always believed there would be ‘a deal around the corner’ that would solve all her problems.”

A sacked staff member said about her greed: “Every night she demands a whole side of beef, a leg of lamb, and a chicken, which are laid out on the dining room table like a medieval banquet. It’s a feast that would make Henry VIII proud.

“But often there is just her and her girls, Bea and Eugenie, and most of it is wasted. There is no attempt to keep it to have cold the next day. It just sits there all night, and the next day it’s thrown away.”