Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has always spoken frankly about her body dysmorphia and her struggles with disordered eating—as well as the events in her life which contributed to their severity, like the absence of her mother and her mistreatment by the British press.
On Monday evening, March 6, Ferguson revealed that she actually came face-to-face with a man who was responsible for some of the incredibly offensive language that was used to skewer her appearance in the media. Speaking with Glamour editor-in-chief Samantha Barry at the 92nd Street Y during a promotional tour for her latest historical fiction novel, A Most Intriguing Lady, Ferguson recalled an encounter with the editor who coined the ghastly moniker “Duchess of Pork.”
“I walked into the factory floor, and there was a little chap at the end,” she said. “He was very jovial and round with a bald head and tiny—and he was laughing hysterically. I went up to him and I went, ‘What’s the joke? C’mon what’s the joke.’”
She continued, “He said, ‘Well, we’re legends, aren’t we? I’ve been around 20 years at the newspaper, and you’ve been around for so long.’ And I said, ‘What’s the joke?’ He said, ‘I’m so excited to tell you, I was the one who made you into Duchess of Pork.’”
The audience audibly gasped as Ferguson continued, “I looked at this little chap—round, jovial—and I thought, my heavens, you were the cause of my eating disorders, my mental stress, my demise. If only I’d known it wasn’t real. It was entirely made up.”
