Just two months ago, she accused her mother of horrific abuse in an emotional outpouring on American TV.
Her late mother, Susan Barrantes, regularly beat her, the Duchess of York alleged during her reality show Finding Sarah.
'When she used to hit me because I didn't sit on my potty or wouldn't eat, a little vein would come up on the centre of my head near my red hair,' she said, adding that her mother called it the 'sign of the devil' and would shout, 'I'm going to beat that devil out!'
Change: Sarah Ferguson now says she loved her mother - despite claiming to have been beaten by her as a child
But now the Duchess, who was reportedly paid £200,000 by Oprah Winfrey for the series, has claimed it was a joke.
In an interview in the latest issue of Hello! magazine – for which she is said to have again been generously compensated – she insists she actually idolised her late mother Susan Barrantes, who died in a car crash in 1998.
