Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, today canceled her scheduled June 27 appearance at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Although her publicists gave no immediate reason for the cancellation, they told ALA that a statement was forthcoming.
Ferguson was recently caught on videotape in the compromising position of trying to sell access to her ex-husband, Britain's Prince Andrew, in return for 500,000 pounds, or about $724,000. She subsequently apologized for the "severe lapse in judgment," and put in a scheduled appearance at Book Expo America in New York May 26, three days after the story broke.
Although there has been no accusation that Ferguson did anything illegal, the embarrassing incident has plagued the duchess as she tried to continue with her American book tour, touting her new children's book series, Helping Hands, a few of which she could no doubt use at this point.
Ferguson's managers had agreed to end her scheduled talk at ALA with a Q&A with the audience. It was particularly disappointing to hear that she had canceled because I was to have moderated the session and had intended to ask her to talk about what the incident was doing to her reputation as a children's author.
It's interesting to note that a May 26 Associated Press story about Book Expo quoted several librarian attendees who thought it was brave of the duchess to attend the book fair while being villified in the media for "influence peddling." Said one, "It was really gracious. She could have bowed out and nobody would have said anything. She came and she's doing her job."