Sarah Ferguson Opens Up About Royal Wedding Rejection on 'Oprah'

May 11, 2011 — -- Fergie fled the U.K. for the jungles of Thailand to soothe the sting of her royal wedding snub.

It was "difficult" not to be invited to last month's wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, said in an interview set to air on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" today. So while much of the U.K. celebrated the marriage, she went to Thailand.

"I was not invited, and I chose to go and be in Thailand in a place called Camelia and ... the jungle embraced me," Ferguson told Oprah Winfrey.

The Duchess' daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, attended the wedding with their father and Ferguson's former husband, Prince Andrew. The princesses dropped jaws around the world with their over-the-top outfits and fascinators (Princess Beatrice's tentacle-like number spawned its own Internet meme).

"I wanted to be there with my girls and … to be getting them dressed and to go as a family," Ferguson said on "Oprah." "And also it was so hard because the last bride up that aisle was me."

A likely reason the royal family rejected Ferguson: In 2010, she was caught on camera accepting money in exchange for a promise of business access to her ex-husband. Her feelings of regret over that incident welled up during the wedding.

"I felt that I ostracized myself by my behavior, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes? So I did spend a good three hours on that," she said.

Despite not attending the wedding, Ferguson wished the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Cambridge well, and told Winfrey that William's mother, the late Princess Diana, "would be so proud of her son."

"And I really love the feeling that sort of Diana and I both weren't there," Ferguson told Winfrey. "But I'm here to say how proud she would have been, and Kate looked utterly beautiful."

Next up for Ferguson: hosting her own show on Winfrey's new cable station, OWN.