'He's likely left her a house and cash - but not a lump sum, she'd blow it.' As Fergie's £600m ex Paddy McNally dies, CAROLINE GRAHAM reveals how the 'Cocaine Castle' party king may have solved her money worries

By CAROLINE GRAHAM, US EDITOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY Published: 01:01, 26 July 2026 | Updated: 01:01, 26 July 2026 Subtle they were not. She was the archetypal ‘thumping great Sloane’, snorting with laughter as she charged around the paddock with a black velvet bow in her flowing red hair. He was the quintessential rake, a silver-tongued playboy nicknamed ‘The Toad’ for his unremarkable looks and slightly slimy manner. Back in the early 1980s, Sarah Ferguson was a virtual unknown outside the world of Formula One. She had yet to meet her future husband, then known as Prince Andrew. Instead she was a fun-loving former chalet girl who was going out with Paddy McNally, a failed racing car driver who found himself at the forefront of the burgeoning F1 hospitality business. It would be a business that ended up making McNally the 238th richest man in Britain, with a £600million fortune by the time of his death last week at the age of 88. When the sad news broke, it led many to speculate that McNally, a widower before he met Fergie and who never remarried, could solve the disgraced ex-duchess’s financial woes for good. After all, they had stayed friends for over four decades, through Fergie’s marriage and divorce from Andrew and her years of profligate spending and debt. McNally stood by her to the end, even in recent months when the shame of her 20-year friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was made public in the so-called Epstein Files, and she was forced to drop out of public view. After she and Andrew were kicked out of Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park last February, she fled to an Austrian spa and then to McNally’s home in Switzerland. Last night, one associate of hers told me McNally, who had been in poor health for years, allowed Fergie to stay in his £25million chalet – nicknamed ‘Cocaine Castle’ for the parties he hosted at the height of his loucheness – ‘because he always wanted to help her’. In the early 1980s, Sarah Ferguson was a fun-loving former chalet girl who was going out with Paddy McNally, a failed racing car driver who found himself at the forefront of the burgeoning F1 hospitality business At the time, Fergie was a virtual unknown outside the world of Formula One (photo from 1983) She had yet to meet her future husband, then known as Prince Andrew The associate said: ‘The first question everyone thought was, “Is Paddy going to bail her out for good?” He was fiercely loyal to her throughout her scandals, and there were many.  'Even in recent months he’s let her stay in his chalet. If he’s left her life-changing money, wouldn’t that be something?’ Another man, who moved in the same circles as Fergie, added: ‘Paddy was shrewd. No one would be surprised if he’s left her a house and cash, but you can bet it’s in a private trust with a monthly income. He’d never give her a lump sum because he knows how easily she’d blow through it.’ Fergie is said to be ‘devastated’ by the death of the man she once described as a ‘father figure’ and ‘mentor’, telling one interviewer: ‘He taught me so much about life. When I wanted advice I turned to him. He seemed to have seen and done everything.’ When I read about McNally’s death my mind instantly went back to one summer in the early 1980s, when I went to the British Grand Prix with my best friend from school, whose father was a director of one of the teams. It was an alien world to me, an Army brat raised on military bases around the world before my family settled in rural Hampshire. ‘Fergie’ – who was known by that nickname before the tabloids took an interest in her – was only seven years older than me but it felt like she’d come from another planet. Brash, confident and loud, her father Ron ‘The Galloping Major’ Ferguson was polo manager for Prince Charles. She had been a chalet girl in Verbier, Switzerland, where she met McNally, 22 years her senior. He hired her to be nanny for his sons Sean and Rollo. He was separated from his wife Anne ‘Twist’ Downing, a Monte Carlo heiress, who died from cancer in 1980. An associate of Fergie's said of McNally: 'He was fiercely loyal to her throughout her scandals, and there were many' (pictured at Silverstone in 1997) Another man, who moved in the same circles as Fergie, added: ‘Paddy was shrewd. No one would be surprised if he’s left her a house and cash' (pictured in 1999) Fergie had been a chalet girl in Verbier, Switzerland, where she met McNally, 22 years her senior (pictured: Fergie with her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie at McNally's chalet) When I saw them at Silverstone, Fergie and McNally were boyfriend and girlfriend, but he would openly flirt with the scores of beautiful women who hung around drivers like Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet and a young Nigel Mansell, who was still in his early Formula 1 career. While the circuit was undoubtedly glamorous, it was nothing like the multi-billion-pound industry it is today. McNally, the fifth of an RAF doctor’s six children, had tried his hand at motor racing but failed, before peddling vacuum cleaners door-to-door to make money. He later wrote about racing for Autosport magazine, which brought him into the orbit of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone. What about offering corporate sponsorship deals and charging businessmen a hefty fee to become members of what he would call ‘The Paddock Club’, an exclusive trackside hospitality suite where you could sip champagne against the backdrop of roaring racing cars, leggy blondes and legendary drivers like Mario Andretti? In many ways, dating Fergie, with her booming posh voice and royal connections through her father, was a savvy business decision for McNally. She was a ‘Sloane Ranger’, a breed of upper-class young men and women who wore Barbour jackets, tweed skirts and blouses with frilly collars, and flitted between homes ‘in town’ and ‘the country’. The set was then in its pomp, and The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook topped the best-seller list a year after we met. While McNally brought in motor racing people, Fergie brought in her friends: handsome, entitled – and very rich – young men and women from the landed gentry. She was wild. James Hunt, the 1976 world champion was, by then, the BBC’s commentator alongside Murray Walker. For some inexplicable reason he took pity on me as a fish out of water and we became firm friends. James, a legendary womaniser himself, had little time for McNally, who he called ‘a chancer’. McNally had briefly worked for James as an assistant. For some inexplicable reason James Hunt took pity on me as a fish out of water and we became firm friends, writes Caroline Graham  When I saw them at Silverstone, Fergie and McNally were boyfriend and girlfriend, but he would openly flirt with the scores of beautiful women who hung around drivers like Alain Prost, Nelson Piquet and a young Nigel Mansell (pictured: Mansell's car in 1983) James told me he’d had the misfortune to stay in a hotel room next to Fergie and her lover during one of that season’s races and described her as ‘the loudest woman I’ve ever heard’. He was furious because her screams of passion had kept him awake all night. James would yell: ‘Oh Paddy! Oh Paddy!’ every time Fergie walked past. To her credit, she took it in good humour. McNally’s company took off. In the next couple of years I watched as his hospitality suites became larger and more professional. He signed corporate sponsorship deals with everyone. When you went into The Paddock Club there would be boxes and boxes of free Marlboro cigarettes. He promoted Rolex watches and Chanel perfume. And he became very rich, something Fergie, who was always struggling to keep up with her peers financially, undoubtedly appreciated. Parties at his ‘Cocaine Castle’ in Verbier (the chalet was officially called Les Gais Lutins, or ‘The Merry Elves’) became legendary. One young member of an aristocratic family broke his arm falling off the roof during a romantic tryst with a ‘lady of the night’. Another time, an enraged McNally came home to find a car blocking his garage so drove straight into it, smashing both vehicles and destroying his garage door. He had a permanent table at a nearby nightclub called The Farm Club, where he would entertain high-profile friends like Princess Stephanie of Monaco. One New Year’s Eve, he had caviar flown in from St Petersburg. He served as best man to Jamie Blandford, now the Duke of Marlborough, when he wed his first wife, Becky Few Brown, in 1990, buying the couple a gun-metal grey Range Rover as a wedding gift and shocking guests with tales of the groom’s misbehaviour. But McNally would humiliate Fergie in front of friends, too. She would complain he called her ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’. On one occasion she was waiting in the chalet and he brought home a glamorous Swiss woman. He gave her the option to ‘have a threesome or f*** off’. In the end Fergie gave him an ultimatum at the 1985 Italian Grand Prix: marry me or else. James later told me: ‘Of course, Paddy chose the “or else”.’ That June, McNally drove Fergie to a party at Windsor Castle, where she would hit it off with Andrew. The pair married the next year. Some friends believe she was always in love with McNally. One woman said: ‘If Paddy had married her there would have been no Andrew. I think Fergie rebounded into that relationship and, after playing second fiddle to Paddy for so long, I think she loved being the centre of attention, with everything marrying a prince brought her. She bought into the fairytale which, of course, turned into a nightmare.’ McNally’s wealth was always there to shield her. He bought James Bond author Ian Fleming’s £40million Grade II listed home Sevenhampton Place in Wiltshire, which became Fergie’s refuge as her marriage to Andrew crumbled. Then there was his villa, Le Clos de Meaux in the South of France, as well as a total of three ski chalets in Verbier and a grouse moor in Scotland. One long-time friend said: ‘Paddy adored Fergie. He never married her but then he never married anyone after his first wife. Fergie was good to his boys and he was good to her girls.’ For years, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie would enjoy ski holidays courtesy of McNally, who would lavish the girls with expensive gifts like designer handbags and couture skiwear. Tragically, McNally outlived his elder son Sean, who died unexpectedly earlier this year in his 50s. A friend said: ‘It’s been rather mysterious. There was nothing about Sean’s death in the papers. Paddy has been in failing health for years but losing his son was a blow which hit him hard.’ McNally sold his business, Allsport Management, in 2006 for £262million. He retired in 2011. Friends from that world would see him every year at a barbecue he would throw beside the pool of the sprawling Wiltshire estate to celebrate the British Grand Prix. McNally ended up buying two adjoining properties to his manor: a Jacobean house set in 165 acres and the 500-acre Hampton Farm. From talking to those closest to McNally I would be stunned if he hasn’t left her a sizeable chunk of his £600million fortune. One friend said: ‘He lived fairly quietly for the last few years. He had a tight circle of friends and Sarah was at the heart of it. They talked on the phone all the time, even when he was very sick.’ One lawyer friend says McNally was changing his will up to the end: ‘His eldest son died. There were codicils [legal documents to make minor changes to a will].’ While the will is likely to become public, McNally’s fortune is tied up in private Swiss trusts to shield the eventual benefactors of his vast estate. Some believe that, as in life, McNally will look after his long-time friend. One source said: ‘Of course he’s going to look after Fergie. They were in each other’s lives for longer than they were ever married to their spouses. He promised to always take care of her and he will.’