Fergie & Andrew: The Duke & Duchess of Disaster

Sarah Ferguson...

..the outspoken and often outrageous Duchess

who can't stop putting her foot in it.

This barrel's for me.

There's certainly a sense that Fergie liked to have fun.

She liked to sort of play jokes,

but actually it began to wear rather thin.

She's like a sort of steam roller that just keeps going.

And her other half, Prince Andrew, the Queen's second son,

and, by all accounts, her very favourite.

He was the pin-up boy, if you like, of the royal family,

he was the one who got the looks and he was a good-looking young man.

Together, they make up the most controversial couple

in the royal family.

High-profile problems have plagued them.

I can't think of a worst thing

than coming down to breakfast and find photographs

of having your toes sucked seen by your family.

Prince Philip was apoplectic,

and swore that she must never step across the threshold

of Balmoral again.

They've reeled from one disaster to the next.

They're in a bubble.

They've both had so much controversy,

it's them against the world.

So, why has it gone so wrong for this royal couple?

Is it about craving attention?

At last, I have the turn to talk.

All these men around here.

Or are they just out of touch?

Well, I have to ask the question, what is a reasonable lifestyle?

One of Andrew's biggest, biggest failings

is his singular lack of judgment,

and that's bound up in a, sort of, sense of entitlement and arrogance

that he's always had, frankly.

Tonight, this is the incredible story of how, together,

Andrew and Fergie have lurched from one scandal to another.

This case with Epstein is so serious.

This is so much more serious than Randy Andy, air-miles Andy.

And how, throughout it all,

they've managed to maintain the closest bond.

In a way, she's his wife in everything but name.

We go behind the scenes

to reveal just why they've made so many mistakes.

Andy and Fergie go in a little bit headfirst

and, where you or I might think, "That's not a good idea,"

it just doesn't occur to them.

In 1986, Britain enjoyed a royal romance.

26-year-old commoner Sarah Ferguson

got engaged to Prince Andrew.

The polished performance

followed hard on the heels of the appearance of a palace official

with the universally expected announcement

of their engagement mid-morning.

It generated intense excitement.

Are you jealous of Sarah Ferguson?

Yes, very, yes.

She's absolutely gorgeous.

I only wish I was 60 years younger. He wouldn't stand a chance.

Inside, the royal couple were showing off the ring.

Can I ask you, then, Miss Ferguson, do you remember what he said?

Absolutely, but I'm not telling you!

What went awry with that dashing young couple?

And what led to the downfall of the Duke and Duchess?

They may not have been royal,

but the Ferguson family had always had close links to the monarchy.

Her father, Major Ron, was polo manager,

initially to the Duke of Edinburgh and later Charles.

Sarah and Prince Andrew were friends as youngsters.

Young Sarah was on the fringes of the royal family,

and, as children she first came into contact with Prince Andrew.

This idyllic childhood

was ruptured by the break-up of her parents' marriage.

Her mother, Susan, a former society beauty,

caused a stir when she ran off to Argentina with a dashing polo player.

Fergie and her sister, Jane, stayed with their father.

The last big conversation she had with her mother

before she went was her mother didn't like her hair.

This is a girl of 12.

And she really thought, for many years,

her mother had left because her hair wasn't right.

If you think your mother doesn't love you,

I think you're always panicked by self-doubt.

Sarah's father was terrific,

but obviously he wasn't a housewife and he wasn't great at cooking.

He did master scrambled eggs,

and they would just eat eggs out of a saucepan

because he thought, well,

"What's the point of dirtying all the plates?"

After her emotionally difficult teenage years,

Fergie moved to London and shared with friends.

Will there be an announcement this week?

Her flatmate adored her.

Sarah Ferguson's flatmate, Carolyn Beckwith-Smith,

is on holiday in Barbados.

Just great fun, really, and interested in lots of things.

Fergie threw herself into London life.

She went on to have serious relationships.

She wasn't the, sort of, unspoiled young woman

that Diana was expected to be as mother of a future king.

As Ron Ferguson famously said,

of course she's got a past.

She's 25, 26 years old.

If she hadn't got a past,

then that would be some serious questions to ask about.

She dated a stockbroker,

then lived with a millionaire called Paddy McNally.

She enjoyed the jet-set lifestyle in his chalet in Switzerland.

She and McNally, who was a widower with two young sons,

fell in love.

And they had a fairly lengthy romance,

but McNally was much older.

You know, almost 20 years older than Sarah.

He was very rich,

Fergie likes very rich men and was living a good lifestyle,

but I don't believe for a moment

there was any question of McNally proposing to Fergie.

The romance, and lifestyle, came to an end,

but, in 1985, she found her prince.

Although Fergie and Andrew had shared paths in childhood,

they'd had very different upbringings.

Well, Andrew has a unique place in royal life

because he was the first child born to a reigning monarch

since the early days of Queen Victoria's reign.

She and Andrew had a very close relationship.

He's constantly described as the Queen's favourite son.

They are extremely close,

and, in a way, closer than Charles and Anne ever were.

He was spoiled,

and Andrew was pretty assured of himself.

He knew what he wanted and he made sure that he got it.

He had the looks, he had the physique.

And you either liked him or you didn't like him.

I think a lot of people didn't like him.

If some of his fellow pupils didn't like him,

the same couldn't be said of women.

Prince Andrew had already been christened with a number of nicknames

regarding his love life.

Randy Andy is the best known.

The Prince has a practiced eye for the ladies,

and his romantic adventures have been well publicised.

The gossip columns make no mention of a serious romance at the moment,

possibly because the list of temporary romances is so long.

Andrew had served as a Navy helicopter pilot

during the Falklands War, then later moved to 'HMS Brazen'.

His helicopter is a Lynx,

which he's nicknamed the Hussy, as in the Brazen Hussy.

He was one of the country's most eligible bachelors.

Here was our hero wartime prince

who came back from the Falklands, dashing and handsome,

with a rose clenched between his teeth.

He was incredibly good-looking in his youth,

and he was very popular with women and he had an eye for women.

The organisers of the sports display

haven't forgotten the prince's reputation with the girls.

12 of the most shapely danced before him,

and the prince's face said the rest.

Prince Andrew had had a rather chequered love life.

He'd been in a relationship for a long time

with Koo Stark, the American actress.

Koo was an absolutely beautiful young woman,

very much in love with Andrew,

but she wasn't going to fit the bill for a royal bride.

Although there had been rumours of marriage, the couple split.

He was 26.

He was at an age where the queen really wanted to see him

start thinking about settling down,

and Sarah came into his life at just the right time.

In 1985, Fergie appeared on the dashing prince's horizon,

and the matchmaker was none other than Princess Diana.

Diana and Fergie had met when they were younger,

and Diana actually wanted Fergie to be her lady in waiting,

but she was turned down and she said by the men in grey.

So, Diana thought, "OK, I will get my own back."

Ascot was coming around.

Diana suggested that Fergie join the royal party,

and Andrew met her, and they clicked right away.

It was...it was a fast match, a pretty quick romance.

It was clear they would not be a traditional royal couple.

Sarah and Andrew

fed each other profiteroles, which were the dessert of the day.

I mean, it beggars the belief

to think of what the queen and other members of the royal family

made of it,

but it was something that they plainly both remembered

because it was brought up in their engagement interview

some nine months later.

We were made to sit next door to each other at lunch at Ascot.

Yes, and he made me eat chocolate profiteroles,

which I didn't want to eat at all.

I, then, didn't have any, so I got hit.

Very hard.

And it started from there. I think that's probably...

I was meant to be on a diet.

They were both keen to set the date for a royal wedding.

I would very much like it to be in the summer and so would Sarah.

Sarah more so because, I think...

Get on with it.

Get on with it and get it out of the way.

She was often contrasted with Diana,