Prince Andrew’s embattled ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, has claimed she only secretly groveled to “supreme friend” Jeffrey Epstein in a newly leaked email because he’d vowed to destroy her in a “Hannibal Lecter-style” call.

The Duchess of York’s excuse came after she was dropped by a slew of charities for the emails that showed her kissing up to the now-deceased pedophile weeks after she’d publicly vowed to disown him.

Her rep told the Telegraph on Tuesday that the gushing note was only penned to protect her and her Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, the daughters she shares with disgraced Epstein pal Andrew.

“It was a chilling call,” said her rep, James Henderson, leaving him “surprised anybody was ever friends with him given the way he talked to me.”

“He said he would destroy the York family and he was quite clear on that. He said he would destroy me.

“He wasn’t shouting. He had a Hannibal Lecter-type voice. It was very cold and calm and really menacing and nasty.”

“People don’t understand how terrible Epstein was. I can remember everything about that call,” he added.

The finger-pointing came soon after Fergie was dumped by several charities after the shocking email, first published by Mail on Sunday, revealed she’d privately apologized to Epstein for publicly claiming to have disowned him in disgust when the sex-pest claims initially surfaced.

In the email, Fergie — who still lives with Andrew — apologized to Epstein for publicly trashing him and calling a $20,000 loan from him “a gigantic error of judgment.”

“I know you feel hellaciously let down by me from what you were either told or read and I must humbly apologize to you and your heart for that,” she wrote to her “dear Jeffrey.”

Ferguson added that Epstein was a “steadfast, generous and supreme friend.”