Sarah Ferguson has said she feels like a "really good mum" as she has taught her daughters how not to repeat her the mistakes she has.
The Duchess of York, 61, said she has always strived to make Princess Eugenie, 31 and Princess Beatrice, 32, aware of how she'd slipped in the past so that her daughters wouldn't repeat the same mistakes and be targets of harassment by the media.
Prince Andrew's ex-wife was in 1996 infamously found embroiled in one of the Royal Family's greatest scandals as the Mirror published pictures of her lying on a sun bed while her financial advisor sucked hers toes and kissed her feet.
The pictures were from a holiday she was on in St Tropez in 1992, and which came just months after Prince Andrew announced the two were getting divorced after six years of marriage.
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But Sarah said she has embraced all of her past so she can focus on being a role model for her daughters as she told People Magazine: "And I'm a good mom because, in growing up, when the girls used to say, 'Why can't we do that?'"
"I would say, 'Well, I've already made those mistakes. The world's press has written about my mistakes, so you don't need to make them now.
"So I've gone ahead of you to clear the way so that you can dream and grow and be who you are."
She also said she has become "friends" with all her past mistakes saying she "didn't know any better" at the time they were made.
"How is it that we're meant to be knowledgeable when we don't know?" she said.
The Duchess of York, who was 26 when she entered royal life, spoke as her debut novel Heart for a Compass is due on August 3.
Sarah also opened up about how all the press attention during her time at the palace took a toll on her mental health as it saw front pages bullying her over weight while branding her 'The Duchess of Pork'.
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She also recalled how she would be taken as a "big hurricane" because she was a "red head", but that wasn't always what she wanted to be portrayed as.
She said she was also often hurtfully compared to Diana, saying: "In the '80s, it was Diana looking beautiful, and there was fat, frumpy Fergie," she says of the many ways the two women were pitted against each other.
But Sarah said the shared abuse brought her and the Princess of Wales together as she said: "We were just there for people to make a lot of money. At the time we both didn't realise that."
