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Sarah Ferguson reveals hijinks that got her and Princess Diana arrested

Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson pictured on a ski trip in 1988. Patrice Picot / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Sarah Ferguson has revealed that she and Princess Diana were at one point thick as thieves — and possibly partners in (minor) crime.

The Duchess of York, known by most as “Fergie,” recounted a story this week, saying her bachelorette party got so wild that it resulted in her and Diana being arrested and put in the back of a police van.

“It was extraordinary, because we went to a nightclub — of course, you go to a nightclub with the Princess of Wales,” she shared on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

“We sat down, and the waiter came up to us and said, ‘Excuse me, this is a members club. It’s for fun, and we don’t serve police officers here.”

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Ferguson told Clarkson and actor Ike Barinholtz that they showed up at the club disguised as London police officers to celebrate her upcoming 1986 wedding to Prince Andrew.

She shared a photo of them dressed up and looking quite unrecognizable; Diana is shown wearing a pair of oversized black-frame glasses as the two hold drinks.

Sarah Ferguson told the Kelly Clarkson Show about her hen-do, during which she and Princess Diana dressed up as police officers.
Sarah Ferguson told the Kelly Clarkson Show about her hen do, during which she and Princess Diana dressed up as police officers. The Kelly Clarkson Show

“They thought you were real police officers?” Kelly asked, to which Ferguson replied: “Yes!”

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When they left the club that night, Ferguson said Diana broke character, which resulted in them both being arrested by nearby officers for impersonating the police.

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Once in the back of the police van, both of the royals turned the stones of their engagement rings into their palms so they wouldn’t be noticed. However, Diana was clearly enjoying the mischief and grabbed a pack of smoky bacon potato chips she found in the van and began eating them.

“The policeman in the front said, ‘You can’t do that!’ Then eventually they realized that it was Diana and me.”

Sarah Ferguson and Princess Diana on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 1987. Getty Images

Ferguson married Prince Andrew after being set up with him by Diana. The women had known each other since childhood — they were fourth cousins and their mothers were good friends.

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Once they both married into the Royal Family, the pressure of constantly being compared with one another put a strain on their relationship and they had a falling out that was never resolved before Diana’s death.

“The saddest thing, at the end, we hadn’t spoken for a year,” Ferguson previously told Harper’s Bazaar. “Though I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head … I tried, wrote letters, thinking whatever happened didn’t matter, let’s sort it out. And I knew she’d come back.

“In fact, the day before she died she rang a friend of mine and said, ‘Where’s Red? I want to talk to her.'”

Ferguson, who’s been doing the press rounds to promote her new novel, A Most Intriguing Lady, told Good Morning America that she knows the late princess would have made a wonderful grandmother and would be “very proud” of her five grandchildren from sons Prince Harry and Prince William.

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“I think we’d have a ‘Granny-Off,'” the Duchess, who is a grandmother to Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s children, quipped. “Because she would run faster in the races. I wonder — she’d probably be funnier. No, I think I’d be funnier.”

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