In-debt Fergie's wasteful spending spree

London, August 17 (ANI): Duchess of York splurged hundreds of thousands of pounds on designer dresses she never wore and first-class flights she never took, it has emerged.

Fergie - who is 5-million-pound in the red - enjoyed a lavish life of excess jetting between New York and London.

"It is an absolute joke to portray her as a helpless victim in all of this. Her spending on dresses, jackets and shoes in a week was often more than people earn in a year," the Sun quoted a US source as saying.

Fergie would spend the week in New York and the weekends in Windsor or London seeing daughters Beatrice, 22, and Eugenie, 20. he source said: "Staff were sent into Manhattan every day without fail to shop for her. She blew 1,500 pounds on T-shirts and tights."

She also sent staff to grab handfuls of 4,000 pounds evening dresses by designers like Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood.

The source said: "She was out in New York every night. The plan was to buy them on approval and get the money back if she didn't like them.

"But it never worked - she was hopeless at making decisions. They were never returned in time so she ended up paying a colossal sum for dresses she never wore.

"It wasn't just clothes. She spent thousands on bathroom lotions. In a bad week, she could quite happily spend 25,000 pounds shopping and over the course of a year easily racked up a half million pound bill."

Fergie's costly transatlantic flights were just as wasteful. A travel industry source said: "She thought nothing of arriving at an airport with 25 cases and paying between 800 pounds and 4,000 pounds in excess baggage."

At least five of those cases were packed with toiletries and make-up. Another one would be used solely for clothes hangers.

The source said: "I estimate she has blown millions through her inability to plan. She would regularly miss flights that weren't refundable."

The Duchess - who was divorced from Prince Andrew in 1996 - did her best to avoid paying hotel bills.

The US source said: "She would just breeze out of the Four Seasons and the Palace in New York as if she was too important to pay.

"There would often be large room service bills but she got away with it more often than not."

Fergie, 50, was also happy to chuck away expensive meals. An insider said: "She has been served food by the finest European chefs that she's thrown away.

"She could always tell someone to knock up a home-cooked meal like shepherd's pie." The Duchess also blew a fortune on 50 bottles pounds of Laurent Perrier Rosi champagne, which went unfinished.

The source went on: "There was one heavy night in New York. Dozens of bottles were left three quarters full - it was an appalling waste. That was the norm." (ANI)