Sarah Ferguson has stepped down from a US charity as the fallout from her explosive email to Jeffrey Epstein follows her across the Atlantic, the Daily Mail can reveal.
The Duchess of York had already been dropped by a string of charities in the UK including the Teenage Cancer Trust and British Heart Foundation.
Now, in a devastating blow to her prospects in America, she has stepped down from the Youth Impact Council, a US based charity that helps young people.
In a statement to the Daily Mail the nonprofit said: ‘Sarah, Duchess of York has stepped down from her role as ambassador to allow our organization to continue to focus on our work.
‘The Council accepts her resignation and recognizes her contributions to date.’
It comes after Virginia Giuffre’s family had urged US organizations to follow the ‘commendable’ example set by British charities to cut ties with the duchess.
It was the first organization in America that the Duchess has been split from, and one that she had described as ‘in my heart,’ and that she wanted to be part of her ‘legacy.’
The development also signals the difficulty she would encounter in any attempt to revive her career in the US instead of the UK.
It comes after a leaked email, reported by the Mail on Sunday and Sun newspapers, showed Sarah had issued a groveling apology to Epstein.
In it she apologized for publicly disassociating herself from ‘her supreme friend’ when it emerged he had bailed her out financially.
And she insisted she had only disowned him publicly to save her career as a children’s author.
The bombshell leaked email shows Sarah wrote to the convicted sex offender to ‘humbly apologize’ in 2011 just weeks after telling the press she had cut all ties with him.
Sarah Ferguson sent an email to Jeffrey Epstein calling him her ‘supreme friend’ after he threatened to ‘destroy the York family’ in a ‘Hannibal Lecter-like’ call.
The Duchess apologized to Epstein in an email for publicly criticizing him
In an earlier interview that year, she described her involvement with Epstein, who had served time for soliciting prostitution from a minor, as a ‘gigantic error of judgment’.
A spokesman for Sarah has since said the email was sent to counter an aggressive threat Epstein had made to sue her for defamation.
He said: ‘The Duchess spoke of her regret about her association with Epstein many years ago, and as they have always been, her first thoughts are with his victims. Like many people, she was taken in by his lies.
‘As soon as she was aware of the extent of the allegations against him, she not only cut off contact but condemned him publicly, to the extent that he then threatened to sue her for defamation for associating him with pedophilia.
‘She does not resile from anything she said then. This email was sent in the context of advice the duchess was given to try to assuage Epstein and his threats.’
The Duke of York has already been forced to relinquish all his public duties and offices as a result of his association with Epstein and is barred from attending official royal events.
The Duchess had announced the US charity project last year during New York Climate Week and was also pictured with fellow founders on the White House lawn.
It is described as ‘an accelerator for youth-led initiatives designed to fast-track the impact of young change-makers, aged 18-35.’
At the time of the launch she told People magazine: ‘They have the solutions if only grown-ups would ask them, ask Gen Z, for the solutions they have in these youth leadership positions.
‘This is the university of life for me to be learning from young people that are actually out there doing the work.
‘It’s like Beatrice and Eugenie are out there doing the work. Eugenie does a lot with The Anti-Slavery Collective, Beatrice does an enormous amount in technology and with dyslexia and really believes in humanity in the workplace, with compassion.’
She added: ‘We collectively thought this was an extraordinary idea. I really want to say that it’s almost my legacy, and I love that. It’s a very big moment to start Youth Impact Council and it’s in my heart and it’s authentic to what I believe. I really love being with young people because they feed me, they feed my soul. They are fun, and it keeps you young!’
The bombshell email obtained by the Mail on Sunday was written to Epstein after the Duchess had publicly pledged to cut ties with him.
She called him a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend.’
The Duchess ‘humbly apologized’ to the convicted sex offender for letting him down.
She wrote: ‘Sometimes the heart speaks better than the words. You have my heart. With lots of love, dear Jeffrey.’
The Duchess also told him she had never described him as a pedophile.
She told him she had been instructed to give an interview to protect ‘my career as a children’s book author and children’s philanthropist.’]
Sarah, Duchess of York, is glimpsed in the back of a Range Rover as she is driven from Royal Lodge at Windsor on Monday
She added that she was ‘broken’ because ‘I saw all my children’s work disappearing’.
She told the convicted pedophile: ‘I know you feel hellaciously let down by me from what you were either told or read and I must humbly apologize to you and your heart for that.’
Her spokesman and adviser James Henderson said her apology to Epstein was in response to a phone conversation in which he claims Epstein threatened legal action.
Describing the call as ‘chilling’, Henderson told the Telegraph: ‘He [Epstein] said he would destroy the York family and he was quite clear on that. He said he would destroy me. He wasn’t shouting. He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty’.
He went on: ‘It was a chilling call and I’m surprised anybody was ever friends with him given the way he talked to me’.
Henderson told the Telegraph: ‘People don’t understand how terrible Epstein was. I can remember everything about that call’.
Her friend and football WAG Lizzie Cundy said the disgraced Duchess of York is ‘devastated’ and wishes she had never met Epstein.
The UK children’s charity Julia’s House has said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to stay involved with Sarah after her emailed apology to Epstein emerged.
The founders of the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation announced they are severing ties and Prevent Breast Cancer announced a similar move.
The Children’s Literacy Charity sked her to step down as patron, calling any continued role ‘inappropriate.’
The Teenage Cancer Trust revealed the Duchess was no longer a patron after she had long backed it, opening its first unit in 1990. And the British Heart Foundation, one of the U.K.’s largest charities confirmed they had also dropped the royal as an ambassador.
