Sarah Ferguson 'Corgi Cloning' Rumours Explained: The 'Crass' Reality Show Pitch That Appalled Royals

Sarah Ferguson is at the centre of fresh controversy in Windsor after a royal expert claimed she told audiences the late Queen Elizabeth II 'speaks' to her through the royal corgis and was linked to a proposed reality show that would have cloned the dogs for profit, a plan said to have left senior royals 'appalled.'

For context, Ferguson and Prince Andrew took in two of the late Queen's beloved corgis, Muick and Sandy, following Elizabeth II's death in 2022. The dogs were widely portrayed as a poignant living link to the monarch.

According to royal correspondent Emily Andrews, writing in Woman & Home, that private symbolism has now curdled into one of the most sensitive flashpoints inside the family, with the Prince and Princess of Wales said to be increasingly frustrated by what they see as the former duchess's attempts to monetise her royal connections.

How Sarah Ferguson's Corgi Claims Landed Inside the Palace

The latest row began in public. At a Creative Women Platform Forum event, Sarah Ferguson reportedly described her mornings with the corgis in a way that jarred badly with some relatives.

'I have her [the late Queen's] dogs... so every morning they come in and go 'woof woof' and I'm sure it's her talking to me,' she told the audience.

Andrews reports that this was not a one-off flourish. In private, Ferguson had allegedly been telling people in her circle that she felt the late Queen's spirit while walking in Windsor Great Park, particularly in places Elizabeth had loved. 'Members of the family thought it a crass and bizarre way in which to boast of her closeness to the late Queen,' Andrews wrote.

The corgis themselves turned into a secondary dispute. According to Andrews, Ferguson gave some friends the impression that the dogs had been specifically left to her in the Queen's will, reinforcing the idea of a personal bequest. Those 'familiar with the situation,' however, said something more prosaic: Andrew had bought the dogs for his mother in 2021, apparently without broader family discussion, and once the Queen died, the animals simply returned to the York household by default.

That alleged embroidery of the facts did not go unnoticed in royal circles already stretched by the pressures of Prince Andrew's scandals and the Sussexes' freelance royalism abroad.

Inside the 'Crass' Corgi Cloning Pitch Around Sarah Ferguson

If the spiritual talk raised eyebrows, the next allegation, reported by Andrews, went several steps further. Sarah Ferguson was linked to a Hollywood-backed proposal for a reality series built around cloning the royal corgis, with the former duchess cast as the lead.

The treatment, as described, was unapologetically commercial. Producers framed the project as a 'bold and controversial business venture,' presenting Ferguson as a woman in late middle age forced to find novel income streams. Cameras would follow her as she tried to have the corgis genetically replicated, then sell the cloned animals to wealthy buyers in markets where commercial pet cloning is legal, including the United States.

The sums mentioned were not small. In the American market, cloned pets can fetch up to £75,000, Andrews noted. The pitch reportedly leant into that logic, suggesting that Ferguson's financial pressures could be turned into compelling television: royal-adjacent hardship underwritten by cutting-edge biotech and eye-watering price tags.

It is hard to overstate how tone-deaf such a concept would appear next to the late Queen's lifelong, almost homespun affection for her dogs. To reduce that bond to a franchisable product line of genetic replicas is the sort of idea that might play in a Los Angeles boardroom but was always going to be radioactive at Windsor.

Animal cloning also carries its own controversies. Scientists and welfare groups have repeatedly highlighted the risks of deformities and suffering in cloned animals. Even without the royal dimension, many viewers would likely recoil from a show where dogs are engineered to order for the very rich.

Andrews writes that the reaction within the Royal Family, when word of the proposal filtered back, was one of disbelief shading into fury. The notion that a woman who has already spent decades trading, to varying degrees, on her royal past might now attach the Queen's most cherished pets to a reality concept felt, to some, like a new low.

The programme was never made. After details of the proposed series emerged in the press, Sarah Ferguson publicly denied having been involved in the project at all. That leaves an awkward gap between how producers apparently framed the idea and how the duchess now characterises her role. Without contracts or on-the-record production statements in the public domain, nothing about Ferguson's level of engagement can be conclusively proved, and all such claims should be treated with caution.