I’m already seeing some of the backstory of this Sentebale twisted to suit a certain narrative, so let’s start close to the beginning of this fiasco. Sophie Chandauka was appointed the chairwoman of Sentebale in July 2023. Over the course of the next year and a half, she lost a major sponsor, alienated many members of the Board of Trustees, and used Sentebale’s reserves to spend generously on sketchy “consultants.” The board of trustees asked for her resignation last year, but she ran to the Charity Commission in England to lodge a complaint, claiming that Prince Harry was racist and he was bullying her. Harry resigned as royal patron, alongside Prince Seeiso, who cofounded Sentebale with Harry. They released a joint statement about it. Chandauka reacted poorly to the joint statement, giving a series of deranged interviews where she made bizarrely hostile accusations over nothing, like “Meghan watched her husband play polo” and “Meghan spoke to her friend Serena Williams at a charity polo game.”
The Charity Commission investigated slowly, then found that Harry had not bullied Chandauka or anything like that. The commission stopped short of placing blame on either party. During the commission’s investigation, almost all of the trustees left Sentebale and Chandauka replaced some of them, and she brought Iain Rawlinson – a close ally of Prince William – further into Sentebale’s leadership. Rawlinson and Chandauka have overseen a near-complete collapse of funding, they’ve closed down Sentebale’s offices and they don’t even seem to be operating Sentebale’s Lesotho-based center for children anymore. And now Sentebale is suing Prince Harry and former Sentebale trustee Mark Dyer for defamation, slander and libel. Chandauka apparently filed the lawsuit in March, but the news dropped on Friday, just days before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex head to Australia. Later in the day on Friday, Mark Dyer and Prince Harry released a statement:
Prince Harry is being sued for libel by Sentebale, the charity he co-founded in 2006 and stepped down from last year. Court records revealed the case was filed in the London High Court against the Duke of Sussex and Mark Dyer, a former trustee of the charity, on March 24, according to the BBC and Reuters. The charge is listed as “defamation – libel and slander.”
A spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex and Mark Dyer tells PEOPLE, “As Sentebale’s co-founder and a founding trustee, they categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims. It is extraordinary that charitable funds are now being used to pursue legal action against the very people who built and supported the organization for nearly two decades, rather than being directed to the communities the charity was created to serve.”
I’m fine with Harry and Dyer’s statement – it’s simple and it leaves room to make many more statements down the line. The mention of “charitable funds are now being used to pursue legal action” got under you-know-who’s skin though, because “Sentebale” quickly released yet another statement, and this one was even more curious.
Sentebale has commenced legal proceedings in the High Court of England and Wales. The charity seeks the court’s intervention, protection, and restitution following a coordinated adverse media campaign conducted since 25 March 2025 that has caused operational disruption and reputational harm to the charity, its leadership, and its strategic partners.
The proceedings have been brought against Prince Harry and Mark Dyer, identified through evidence as the architects of that adverse media campaign, which has had significant viral impact and triggered an onslaught of cyber-bullying directed at the charity and its leadership.
Sentebale has experienced the adverse media campaign as false narratives circulated through the media about the charity and its leadership, attempts to undermine its relationships with staff, existing and prospective partners, and the forced diversion of leadership time and resources into managing a reputational crisis not of the charity’s making.
…At a time when international aid is contracting and the needs of children across Southern Africa are growing, the work Sentebale delivers for 78,000 young lives is increasingly critical. The charity should not continue to use its resources to manage and address the damage this adverse media campaign has caused to its operations and partnerships. This must stop. The Board and Executive Director have taken this legal action to secure that protection. The costs of doing so are met entirely by external funding and no charitable funds have been used.
The Board and Executive Director trust that those who believe in Sentebale’s mission will understand why this legal action, whilst difficult, was necessary and important, and will continue to stand with us as we focus on the work ahead.
Sentebale’s focus remains where it has always been: the children and young people of Lesotho and Botswana.
Sentebale does not intend to comment further on this matter while legal proceedings are ongoing.
“The costs of doing so are met entirely by external funding and no charitable funds have been used.” So Sentebale is facing an enormous funding crisis and donor crisis, yet they have “external funding” available to sue Prince Harry and Mark Dyer? Where does this external funding come from? Why won’t anyone in the press ask that? “The charity should not continue to use its resources to manage and address the damage this adverse media campaign has caused to its operations and partnerships…” What in God’s green earth is this ghastly woman talking about? The crisis within Sentebale is entirely of Chandauka’s own making. No one forced her to spend lavishly on “consultants” who never delivered. No one forced her to peddle her lies to the Charity Commission just so she could avoid being ousted as chairwoman for her gross incompetence. No one forced her to go on a publicity tour smearing Sentebale’s co-founder, not to mention the co-founder’s wife. No one forced her to commit a hostile takeover of a small, worthy charity. This whole thing is completely f–king deranged and infuriating.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencaps courtesy of Sky News.
