Even though Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew separated in 1992, they didn't officially divorce until 1996. As Ferguson later told Harper's Bazaar, she ended up striking a deal with the Queen. "I didn't want a divorce but had to because of circumstance," she said. Apparently, Ferguson wanted to earn her own money. "It's not right for a princess of the royal house to be commercial, so Andrew and I decided to make the divorce official so I could go off and get a job," she said.
As Ferguson went on to explain, she only had one request: as she put it, she wanted "friendship, not money." Instead of asking for a large divorce settlement, she requested that she could remain close to the royal family. This meant that Ferguson left the marriage without having to "fight" the Queen for money.
In the end, her settlement was just £15,000 (around $20,300) a year. And even though Ferguson claimed to want a small settlement, according to The Guardian, she was bitter not to have been given a little more.
