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Fatherhood Quote by Sarah Ferguson

"He's by best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex"

About this Quote

The candor lands because it refuses the usual script: exes are supposed to be either villains or footnotes. Sarah Ferguson frames hers as a continuing institution. Calling him "my best friend" and "the father of my children" stacks intimacy and responsibility in the same breath, then caps it with the deliberately counterintuitive punchline: "a great ex". The phrase is almost a PR genre unto itself, but it still startles because it treats divorce not as an ending but as a redesign.

The specific intent reads as reputational triage and emotional positioning. Ferguson spent decades as tabloid fodder and royal-family cautionary tale; this line tries to relocate her story from scandal to stability. It also protects her children by publicly stabilizing their parents' relationship: whatever happened between the adults, the family system remains functional. "Great" does important work here, smoothing over complexity without denying history. She isn't claiming the marriage worked; she's claiming the aftermath does.

The subtext is modern, even a little defiant: we can be separated and still loyal, still collaborative, still affectionate. In a culture that rewards neat moral arcs, she offers a messier metric of success: not permanence, but competence and care after rupture. Coming from a figure linked to monarchy, where personal choices become symbolic, the line doubles as a quiet argument that dignity can survive public dissolution - and that co-parenting can be its own form of partnership.

Quote Details

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Source
Verified source: News24: Fergie regrets divorce (Sarah Ferguson, 2011)
Text match: 98.41%   Provider: Cross-Reference
Evidence:
"He's my best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex.". The earliest primary-context source I could verify online is a May 17, 2011 news report describing footage from Sarah Ferguson's OWN television documentary series Finding Sarah. The article says the remark was made while she was being hypnotised/filmed for the series, indicating the quote was spoken on camera rather than originating in a book. I also verified a June 12, 2011 CNN transcript of Piers Morgan's interview with Ferguson discussing Finding Sarah and her relationship with Prince Andrew, but that transcript does not contain this exact wording. I could not verify an earlier book, speech, or interview publication before the May 17, 2011 report. Note also that the version you supplied has a typo: sources show "my best friend," not "by best friend."
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Ferguson, Sarah. (2026, March 16). He's by best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hes-by-best-friend-and-the-father-of-my-children-118425/

Chicago Style
Ferguson, Sarah. "He's by best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex." FixQuotes. March 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hes-by-best-friend-and-the-father-of-my-children-118425/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"He's by best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex." FixQuotes, 16 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/hes-by-best-friend-and-the-father-of-my-children-118425/. Accessed 27 Mar. 2026.

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About the Author

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Sarah Ferguson (born October 15, 1959) is a Author from United Kingdom.

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