Me and Sarah, Duchess of York, January, 2004
Yes...if you think back a little and remember what you know about me, you will eventually stumble upon the Weight Watchers years...and you will remember that I worked closely with The Duchess and a team of talented professionals who were responsible for her reinvention after the toe-sucking/royal divorce/Duchess of Pork days... Our work established her reemergence as an inspiration to millions of people who never thought they to could reinvent themselves...take charge of their lives and become the person they wanted to be...and weight loss and body image were just the beginning of the messages The Duchess communicated in her role as spokesperson for Weight Watchers International. And she was beloved.
By now you have all heard about what she was "caught on tape" doing this past weekend in London...puportedly selling access to HRH, The Duke of York -- her royal ex-husband, the father of her children -- to an undercover reporter posing as a legitimate businessman.
Apparently a desperate act of a woman who is deeply in debt and made a bad judgment call.
I spent six years working with The Duchess and I know a woman of many qualities...and in the coming days, until this dies down, you will all read a lot about who she is and the mess she has created here, there and everywhere...she lives beyond her means! she has traded on her royal title! she's an abomination to The Royal Family! she sponged off of Prince Andrew! she let some rich bald dude suckle her tootsies!... Still, I wanted you to know what lies beyond that...the woman as I know her too...
First, if there is one rule of PR to which I have held true over the years, it is to do all you can to protect and preserve the image of the client or brand...to keep inside information of any kind to yourself. And though I know how The Duchess liked her tea and what she enjoyed snacking on and what cocktail was her favorite...and the way she was with her girls...and what she said about Andrew and Diana and William and Harry and the Queen...and about her amazing intuition and psychic abilities (she announced to a room full of people that I was pregnant with Will in the earliest days of the pregnancy, before I even knew for sure...)...and some of her stories about run-ins with other celebrities...and difficult moments and tense times we had with her...I think I will continue to honor the rule and keep the details to myself... But some of the experiences I had with her over the years that I will share, speak to who she was almost 99% of the time I spent with her...
In Buffalo one year I had arranged through Make-A-Wish Foundation for a terminally ill little girl, whose last wish it was to "meet a princess," to be a guest at our event and have a private meeting with The Duchess afterwards. And the Duchess was worried the child wouldn't think she was a real princess...like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty...so she asked for some tin foil and she made herself a crown and a little scepter...she bought the girl some Barbie dolls and she sat on the floor of that hotel meeting room with that ridiculous foil crown and played with the little girl for at least an hour while the girl's mother and the Make-A-Wish folks looked on in teary amazement...
And the time in Kansas City when she insisted on making a detour to planned appearances and TV interviews so that she might visit my great friend and counterpart, Nancy B., who had just given birth to a daughter, who arrived unexpectedly and very early...six weeks early at least...and the whole team, including The Duchess, had worried that all the work Nancy did to make this royal visit to Kansas City successful had stressed the baby and made her arrive early... So The Duchess didn't care whom she kept waiting, this visit and being there for Nancy was far more important to her...
And there was her great chemistry and deep friendship with my dear friend, co-worker and mentor, Sharon R....an amazing leader at Weight Watchers, our training manager and the gold standard by which all others were judged. The Duchess always turned to Sharon for inspiration and encouragement...their traveling show at our East Coast Super Meetings was the hottest ticket in every city, little and big, that we traveled to over six years together...they shared a legendary banter and effortless back and forth...what a great team! Such fun to watch. And I know that The Duchess stayed close to Sharon and called her frequently from wherever she happened to be in the last two years of Sharon's life...returning the inspiration and support Sharon gave her over the years...and I know those calls buoyed Sharon's spirits and brought her much comfort in those final weeks.
And then in Baltimore, hosting the last media event in my role at Weight Watchers, The Duchess pulled me aside and told me how much our working relationship had meant to her over the years...and this touched me because I had always been sure to give her a respectful amount of space so she would not feel that she had to be "on" around me. She said that she always felt cared for and comforted when she traveled with our team...and she thanked me for that and said that she would miss me and that she wanted to stay in touch. Weeks later I received a lovely card with great photos that she shot herself along with a personalized note that was genuine and heartfelt...an unexpected but fitting goodbye....and of course, I still keep it with my other favorite things...
I don't know what happened this past weekend...I hate to know that she had hit that low of a rock bottom and that it was splashed across the world in technicolor. I feel for The Duchess because she truly is a good, decent person...generous and witty and polite and sentimental...cool and sarcastic too...but mostly, she was wounded from a lifetime of loss and I always wanted to see her happy. We all do things that are not wise or pretty and we make choices that are morally ambiguous...every one of us does things we are not proud of, but to use an old Weight Watchers saying: "there is a positive intention behind every action..." Not to excuse the behavior, but I believe she is in need and she was only trying to protect herself.
So...judge not lest ye be judged, I guess... I am on Team Fergie.
5 comments:
Suz, I have rarely said this to anyone, but here goes: I could have not said it better myself. You have expressed my feelings and our experiences with DOY perfectly. I will never forget the day she walked through the door of Overland Park Regional Hospital with a box of Krispy Kremes and then spent the next hour visiting every baby in the NICU in addition to my Allison. You'll never get me to say a disparaging word about her, no way, no how. Love - Nan
hahaha NICE!!! :D
Look at you, Cold Lampin' with Royalty! :D
I need to write about the same topic.. Not royalty, but rather "keeping people's business out tha street". It's SO important, and yet so rare. Everybody wants to be DOWN and pose in pictures, but who's REALLY on Team Fergie? O_o
Unfortunately, it takes time and life experience to figure these things out. You can get a vibe from someone that you're going to be close to them or that you can share things with them that won't end up in public, but it takes time for them to prove to you who they are and what they're about. In the long run, that's what's really valuable about people, IMO.. Whether they have your back when the going gets rough.
Keep your friends close... And kick everyone else to the curb!!! :D
Beautifully written Suz. So many memories...I recall two of the three you mentioned - great times. I too share the "Team Fergie" position. Often, desparate times call upon desparate measures -- " judge not lest ye be judged." It is the book...not the chapter, paragraph or sentence that should fall upon the critic's eye. DOY has a great book! :-)
Dell
Great post Suz.
As I said elsewhere (and to butcher a quote from Ben F.) - It's tough for an empty sack to stand up tall.
Here's hoping we don't find ourselves in the position where easy money is at the end of a questionable choice.
Suzanne,
you couldnt have described sarah more perfectly. she is a human being who is just going thru a rough patch. ww and sharon r's family was so fortunate to see sarah the duchess of york as a real person. not just a princess, but someone who reached out to all of us in our hardest time of our lives. our mother, would light up on her sickest days when we would recieve a written note from the duchess herself with beautiful flowers or personal phone calls just to cacth up on how she was doing. the duchess will rise above this detour in life. i know, my mother is watching over her. I am positive that the entire clan on sharon r's side is definetly on team fergie!
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