A royal author has defended his claims that Sarah Ferguson had a sexual relationship with the now disgraced rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Andrew Lownie, whose incendiary book Entitled chronicled Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex wife’s conduct, published new claims about the pair on Saturday.
Combs, formerly known as P Diddy, allegedly bragged about his sex life with Ferguson and would meet her in luxury hotels, including one that cost more than £50,000 a night, Lownie claimed in an updated paperback edition to be published this month.
Last year Combs was found guilty on two charges of transportation for prostitution and sentenced to four years in prison in New York.
In a book extract published by the Daily Mail, Lownie wrote that a former employee at Combs’s Bad Boy Records claimed the rapper was obsessed with the royal family and boasted about having sex with Ferguson. According to the source, Combs once said “he could not wait until Fergie’s daughters come of age.”
The book quotes another associate of the singer who said Ferguson first met Combs at a 2002 party thrown by Ghislaine Maxwell and that a secret “friends with benefits” relationship began in 2004 and lasted for years.
Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend and a friend of Ferguson, is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking.
A source close to Ferguson rubbished the new claims. “This is absolute fabricated nonsense, blatantly untrue, and yet another false allegation from him [Lownie],” they said.
Lownie told The Sunday Times his evidence came from several people and that he had no doubts about his sources.
“I stand by it, it’s fully sourced with former employees of P Diddy and Sarah Ferguson,” he said, adding that Ferguson was proven to have lied about breaking contact with Epstein in 2011. Last September an email surfaced showing Ferguson called Epstein her “supreme friend” and apologised for publicly criticising him, weeks after saying she would have nothing to do with him. Charities dropped her as a patron or ambassador after the email was published.
Lownie, also a historian and literary agent, has previously written books on the royal family including a 2019 biography The Mountbattens about Lord and Lady Mountbatten and 2021’s Traitor King about Prince Edward, the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson.
His hardback edition of Entitled came out last August and was a precursor to the dramatic downfall of Andrew and Ferguson with damaging and lurid claims, including that the former prince was a “serial sex addict” who had apparently slept with more than 1,000 women.
In the paperback he writes that a men’s perfume Combs released in 2006 called Unforgivable was inspired by Ferguson and how she liked a man to smell.
The book says Ferguson and Combs met in Europe and Africa. “They’d meet in luxurious hotels … They once stayed at a seven-star hotel that was over £50,000 a night. They spared no expense”, a source is quoted as saying.
Lownie claims Ferguson introduced her two daughters to Combs on many occasions, including a yacht party weekend in 2006 when Eugenie was 16.
A royal staff member allegedly told the author: “Sean’s parties were wild. The fact that she brought Eugenie around was alarming.”
As well as his conviction for transportation for prostitution, Combs also previously settled a sexual assault and abuse lawsuit brought by his former partner Cassie Ventura.
The new Lownie extract quotes a royal source claiming Queen Elizabeth “repeatedly trashed Fergie” behind the scenes. “Several people, notably the Queen, ex-Prince Andrew and Prince Charles, were aware of her activities for years but turned a blind eye to protect the family from more scandal,” they were quoted as saying.
The book claims Andrew kicked a labrador in the head and left it whimpering on the ground after it snatched a sausage roll from a guest’s hand at a Sandringham shooting weekend.
The guest is alleged to have said: “That is the most disgusting thing that you have just done to your beautiful dog … You should be ashamed of yourself!”, to which Andrew replied: “Piss off. It is none of your business and I will do precisely what I want to MY dogs.”
Andrew’s father, Prince Philip, is said to have told the guest later that evening that he fully agreed with what they had said, apparently saying: “Andrew needs a good scolding from time to time.”
The paperback edition of Entitled by Andrew Lownie is published on May 21
