Sarah Ferguson - The Duchess Weighs In

"I've been an emotional eater since I was a teenager," she would later tell me. With her mother gone, Ferguson comforted herself with fattening foods they had enjoyed together—sausages, egg salad, pate. "I overate to compensate for my feelings. I didn't want to express to my mother that I was angry or sad that she'd left me." Soon after she began the fad-diet shuffle, shedding pounds rapidly only to regain them when her emotions pointed her toward food.

Ferguson's weight isn't the only thing that has fluctuated over the years. So has the British media's portrayal of her. When she first married Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, in 1986, the press loved her, declaring her "a breath of fresh air" in the conservative royal family. Before long, however, they began cruelly criticizing her behavior, clothing and weight, going so far as to proclaim her the Duchess of Pork. But rather than angering her, as it would many people ("I wish it did make me angry," she says), the media's harsh headlines hurt Ferguson deeply and further fueled her tendencies toward self-loathing and emotional eating. It didn't help that the paparazzi's plummeting opinion of the duchess dictated that of the United Kingdom's.

"You play, you pay," lilted one Irish bartender when I asked what he thought of Fergie. I was having lunch at his pub and reading her newest book, Reinventing Yourself, just before meeting the duchess. Perhaps he was referring to the famous photographs taken in 1992 of a still-married Fergie with her American financial adviser, John Bryan, who appeared to be sucking her toes.

The duchess later told the press that the exchange was platonic, but in truth, her marriage with Prince Andrew was shaky and they were already separated. As a Naval officer, the duke spent most of his time at sea and apart from his wife and their two daughters, Beatrice, now 13, and Eugenie, 11. "Five days out and two days back—a scenario that has killed many a marriage," she wrote in her memoir, My Story, in 1996. The distance between them, compacted by the royal courtiers' unfriendly demeanor, eventually culminated in their divorce that same year. But still, the British tabloids continued to berate Ferguson's every move, attacking her growing weight and accumulating debt.

Negative press withstanding, when the bartender learned I was interviewing Fergie that afternoon his tone changed dramatically. "Really?" he exclaimed, wide-eyed and excited. "Bring her here afterwards. Tell her the drinks are on the house." This response, very American in tenor, was much more familiar to me.

"Americans like the underdog," says Gerry Casanova, Ferguson's longtime publicist, when explaining her popularity in the U.S. "They like honesty in a person. I think she's one of the most original people I've ever known. She doesn't wear a lot of makeup; she's not caught up in being fancy. There's a part of her that's very natural."

I kept his words in mind as I anxiously awaited her arrival in the room reserved for PT's photo shoot, reminding myself that Ferguson may be royalty, but she's down to earth. "Natural" royalty. Then she walked in the door. Although still striking, she now appeared physically and emotionally exhausted after 12 hours in the media limelight. Fortunately, it didn't take long to boost her spirits. Our French photographers swooped in, coaxing her into fun, flattering clothes and complimenting her in their soothing accents.

"You've got a very positive staff," Ferguson called over her shoulder between flashes. "Young, upbeat, trendy. They've lifted my spirits." Soon she was cracking jokes. "This is awfully small; what do you think?" she asked wryly, modeling a tiny jacket that would have fit a young child. An hour later, we finally sat down to talk one-on-one.

"Honestly, I still felt out of control with my weight until I joined Weight Watchers," Ferguson admits. "As a grown woman I was virtually blind to the triggers that would set me off on a binge." Those triggers—feelings of low self-esteem, abandonment, loneliness and stress (experienced both when her mother and Prince Andrew left)—are issues many people face when confronting habitual overeating. Her tendencies made her a perfect candidate for representing Weight Watchers.

"She obviously had the celebrity to grab people's attention," says Linda Webb Carilli, R.D., a Weight Watchers spokeswoman who helped form the company's partnership with Ferguson. "The duchess is a role model. She creates inspiration for people because she is so candid, so interesting, so willing to talk openly about weight, that it makes it OK for others to do the same."