Sarah Ferguson Recalls Getting Arrested With Princess Diana During Her Bachelorette Party

The bachelorette party is one of the best ways to let loose and spend some much-needed time with your best friends ahead of your wedding. Before Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew in 1986, she arranged an unforgettable pre-wedding celebration, called a hen party in England, where she and Princess Diana got into a little bit of trouble. During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, the Duchess of York recalled the hilarious series of events that resulted in the pair being arrested. 

While speaking with host Kelly Clarkson, Fergie said that she and Diana were dressed in cop costumes for a night out at a club. A photo showed the friends wearing the uniforms and matching caps while drinks abounded on the table in front of them. “We sat down, and the waiter came up to us and said, ‘Excuse me, this is a members club, and it’s for fun, and we don’t serve police officers here,’” the duchess recounts. Clarkson then clarified, “They thought you were real police offers?” to which Ferguson responded, “Yes!”

Once the royals left the club, the princess spotted a woman wearing a dress she also owned, so Ferguson reveals that Diana broke character. Then, they pretended to arrest one of their friends near Buckingham Palace, which turned into a real arrest when actual police offers put them in handcuffs and into the back of a police car for impersonating the police. That’s when Diana noticed “smoky bacon flavored crisps” and couldn’t help but eat them. “The policeman in the font seat [said] ‘You can’t do that!’” Fergie remembers. Eventually, the cops recognized that the pair were actually British royals and not felons.

They cleared up the misunderstanding, which meant the pre-wedding celebration could officially continue. They continued the festivities at Annabel’s nightclub—still in their wigs. To conclude the night, the crew played a trick on Prince Andrew by locking the palace gates. In her autobiography, Fergie wrote that after the hen party, she confessed everything that had happened to Queen Elizabeth II, who found it “reasonably amusing.”

The hen party mishap represented the two’s friendship. “She and I—we laughed a lot,” Fergie says to Clarkson. “You know what she used to do? She used to tell me the worst story—joke story—just before I had to be serious.” The duchess also told the host that she doesn’t miss Diana, who died in a car accident in 1997, because she is always with her in spirit. Ferguson previously opened up to People about her relationship with Diana and said they had been best friends ever since they were teenagers.