In March of last year, Prince Harry and Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso resigned as patrons of Sentebale. They resigned in protest alongside the majority of Sentebale’s board, all because of Sophie Chandauka, Sentebale’s chairwoman. Soon the whole story came out – Chandauka was and is a self-dealing grifter who was spending lots of Sentebale’s funds on various “fundraising schemes” which went nowhere. The board lost confidence in her leadership and tried to force her to resign. Instead of resigning, she threw an international tantrum, ran to Britain’s Charity Commission and claimed that the board and the patrons were harassing her and bullying her. She then concocted a bizarre story about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and how she hated that Harry organized fundraising polo matches and she especially hated that Meghan attended her husband’s polo matches. Instead of treating Chandauka with well-deserved skepticism, the British media platformed her lies and merrily gloated about how Harry would be so hurt to see the destruction of the charity he co-founded.
In the second half of 2025, Sentebale began falling apart under Chandauka’s leadership. She appointed several sycophantic board members and she’s being advised by one of Prince William’s big allies. None of that helped – she effectively mothballed Sentebale’s Children’s Center and looted Sentebale’s reserves. She closed down the charity’s London office and fired everyone there. She also “canceled” all polo fundraisers, big surprise. Well, the Times of London has an update. Some highlights:
Harry will never return to Sentebale: The HIV/Aids charity’s annual accounts say its programmes will shrink by the end of 2026 if efforts to find fresh funding are not successful. “The idea that Harry was ever going to return has been completely extinguished,” a source close to the charity said. “There’s absolutely no way now. It’s all too tarnished.”
Sophie has fired people in Botswana too: The charity recently made a round of redundancies in Botswana, on top of job losses in London, as part of a global restructuring to reduce costs by £1 million. Sources claim one in five staff in Botswana have been made redundant, including the country director Ketlogetswe Montshiwa, and staff said they feared there was a “significant cash flow problem”.
Chandauka was looting the charity as early as the last two quarters of 2024: Published accounts show Sentebale ran through almost all its reserves as the row deepened through 2024. Monthly income fell by a quarter and the amount of cash in the bank, once immediate debts are taken into account, had fallen to £207,000 in December 2024, down from £1.5 million compared with 16 months earlier. Sentebale admitted in the document that it was “close to [the] minimum reserves level”.
A cash flow problem: A source in Botswana said there was “a real cash flow problem” and another said the charity’s operations in Lesotho were “getting into the red”, adding: “It’s not working at all”. They described the workload for those left after the redundancies as “unbearable”. The charity laid off its London staff early in 2025 and, according to locals, “effectively mothballed” the Mamohato Children’s Centre, its headquarters in Lesotho. The charity denied this, saying the centre “remains fully operational”.
No money coming in: A hit to its finances came with the end of the Sentebale Polo Cup, once the charity’s top fundraiser, raising £740,000 a year. The event has not taken place for two years. Sentebale’s leadership said the charity was too reliant on fundraising linked to Harry and claimed to have “made progress in beginning to diversify its funding base”. Yet as the charity suffered financially, it gave an inflation-busting pay rise of 6.5 per cent to staff, including executives, taking the chief executive’s pay to £138,267.
Sophie Chandauka is such a despicable person and her actions have done irreparable harm to Lesthoto and to the children who used to be supported by Sentebale. One of things going unsaid in the British media is that Sophie’s corporate-speak justifications for “diversifying fundraising” and “Sentebale needs to get out of the Sussex business” have blown up in her face. For example, Sophie was throwing tantrums about wealthy people like Serena Williams attending polo matches. Most chairwomen would thank the Sussexes for attracting such big names and make personal appeals to Serena and other bigwigs for donations. Sophie also lied and claimed that the polo matches were not a sustainable fundraising method, and that Sentebale needed to fundraise within Africa alone, rather than seek donations from… wealthy Americans and Europeans. Her frantic lies never made any sense. Anyway, obvious story is obvious – of course Harry isn’t coming back.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, ITV.
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- Aspen, CO Prince Harry was seen in Aspen with injured hands after taking part in the polo finals against his longtime friend Nacho Figueras, showing his determination and competitive spirit despite the tough match. Pictured: Prince Harry BACKGRID USA 18 DECEMBER 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Aspen, CO Prince Harry loses the Polo finals championship against his best friend, Nacho Figueras Pictured: Prince Harry, Nacho Figueras BACKGRID USA 18 DECEMBER 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Aspen, CO Prince Harry loses the Polo finals championship against his best friend, Nacho Figueras Pictured: Prince Harry, Nacho Figueras BACKGRID USA 18 DECEMBER 2025 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- The Duchess of Sussex presents the trophy to her husband, the Duke of Sussex after his team the Royal Salute Sentebale Team defeated the Grand Champions Team, in the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex presents the trophy to her husband, the Duke of Sussex after his team the Royal Salute Sentebale Team defeated the Grand Champions Team, in the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex the Duke of Sussex poses for pictures with the teams after he took part in the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duchess of Sussex presents the trophy to her husband, the Duke of Sussex after his team the Royal Salute Sentebale Team defeated the Grand Champions Team, in the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Duke of Sussex during the awards ceremony after he played in a polo match during the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center Featuring: Prince Harry, Duke Of Sussex Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
I’m really disappointed Prince Seeiso let this happen. It reads like he doesn’t care that the charity is going down. I’m sure there’s stuff he could have done about this woman.
Like what? He wasn’t the target of the attacks on Sentebale. You could argue that the by-laws should have been stronger to protect Sentebale against a hostile takeover but other than that there was nothing that Seesio could have done.
The people who founded the charity were good people, they never dreamt that others could be so bad.
What do you mean Seeiso let it happen? William with the help of Chandauka hijacked that charity. They didnt care about those kids. Seeiso, just like Harry was a royal patron.
All he could do was help raise funds, and let the professionals run the charity.
The only people other than william and chandauka, who are responsible for this, is the charities commission. They didn’t do their job.
And ‘Dr’ Chandauka is a corporate lawyer by profession – only has an HONORARY business admin doctorate from Coventry Uni. It’s the norm to avoid using honorary doctorates in broader professional or public settings to prevent confusion with earned doctorates and misleading people.
Furthermore, her legal practice qualification is NOT from ‘Oxford University’, but from an institute that no longer exists with links to both Oxford Brookes and the University of Oxford. What she put on LinkedIn, etc, was again very misleading (adjusted recently, but still less than clear, lol!).
This woman is a master of spin, obfuscation and manipulation. Dangerous, imo.
Pretty,
If you’re so sure there was something he could have done, then please, enlighten the rest of us. Saying he “let this happen” is akin to saying “see what you made me do.”
I hope karma comes to meet her and Bulliam and resides permanently in their home ASAP!!
There’s nothing to return to. No matter how many times I read about this story, I still don’t understand how this woman got so much control.
Exactly, there is nothing to return to. Plus Sentebale is now being dismantled under William’s watch. I don’t think he orchestrated it, but once he got wind of Sophie’s destruction, he sent his goon to ensure maximum destruction.
I think William is definitely behind the hostile takeover of the charity.
I don’t understand why she did it, I can’t see her ever being allowed to run a charity again.
Sophie doesn’t have a job. Her only role seems to be at sentebale. That’s why she wanted to go from her role being an unpaid voluntary position to getting a high exec pay.
I really think she didn’t expect Harry & seeisio to resign when the trustees did so thought she could still fundraise using their image & clout& paying herself loads. She had no long term plan for the charity without the princes which is why after her round of interviews slamming Prince Harry her friend Trevor Philip’s wrote an article in the Sun saying that Harry should put aside issues with Sophie & return to sentebale.
Once the princes stepped back & with a major donor gone the gig was up so the only reason she’s hanging on now is to get her high salary before it folds. Harry will be blamed when it does & she will probably give the press more Harry criticism content. Then once they have no more use for her the press will expose more of her grifting ways. Apparently she left another charity focused on Black British business owners in bad shape too.
I mean this piece could have been written without mentioning Harry. His resignation from Sentebale and the Charity Commission’s ruling meant that he was no longer going to be part of the organisation and the source close to Sentebale was stating the obvious. I think Sentebale will probably cease operations within the next 18 months and I expect Harry to continue his work in the HIV/AIDS sector under Archewell.
Well the witch that is Sophie didn’t make the New Years’ Honors list if that’s what she was bucking for in this act of treachery. She will be thrown under the bus by William, Ian and KP when it’s all over.
What did Sophie think would happen after thrashing her major fund raising patron and his wife publicly during a mad media blitz? Did she imagine big hitters would be queuing up to work with her after that? Did Will ‘s minion promise her that FK would be her new patron?
Yes, none of this story as reported is rational to me. Sentebale was both too small and too big to make it worth defrauding – too small in assets and too big in profile. If I set aside the idea that Sophie is both crazy and an idiot, I have to conclude this was deliberate. Nothing else explains the exact “worse” series of decisions that would both bring down Sentabale and cause maximum PR kerfuffle. Sophie was “hired” to do just that. As for what she gets out of it – it can’t be just the few hundred thousands she took out of the charity. This doesn’t do her resume any favors as an expert manager – I can’t imagine she’d do this without the promise of a bigger payout.
Yes Eurydice I am wondering what Iain Rawlinson, Will ‘ chum, and Sophie expect to do after Sentebale folds?
Iain is still shown on Sentebale’s page as a trustee. Maybe Sophie and Iain are looking forward to William doing for them what he did for Jason Knauf. Knauf lied in court for William about Meghan’s letter to her father and had to resign when the judge figured it out. But William knighted Knauf a year or two later, then he gave Knauf a cushy job at Earthshot. Wonder what Sophie could contribute to Earthshot?
Wow, so they’re firing staff, and closing centers but yet gave themselves nice, big raise?! This woman is evil.
Yep, this article sort of reads like, “Here’s your update on Sentebale: things are looking really dire, management is horrific, it will probably shutter soon, and we’re using Harry’s name to get you to click on our article.”
Right, @Harla. After all, the money raised by their primary donor (annual polo fundraisers) over many decades was not, in this woman’s opinion, adequate for their charitable mission; however, polo money is just fine for Sophie Chandauka and the others who got raises. Also, I don’t know what law school she went to but, who taught her that “diversifying fundraising” started with alienating your major donors. If the Sussex name offended her so much, she could have 1) not taken the job, 2) resigned from her chairmanship position, or 3) raised enough money on her own to outmatch the annual polo fundraisers. Simple. The charity was founded by the two princes years ago, so if S.C. had an issue with either of them, she should not have gotten in business with them, or she could have just left. Such a grifter.
When Harry and Seeiso resigned from the charity, that was the end of it. Harry was the face of the charity so to say they needed to fundraise without him was ridiculous. I hope whatever new charitable initiatives Harry undertakes in this region to address HIV/AIDS will be under the Archewell umbrella. There was probably so much happening we don’t know about that was probably
much worse. I just hope Harry and Seeiso can get the rights to the name Sentebale so that Chanduuka can’t sell it or profit from it, though she’s damaged it beyond repair. This was really one of the worst things that the Sussexes dealt with in 2025.
I doubt the name is worth anything now, to much adverse publicity.
I believe this story is far from over. Harry is a very patient man. At his last polo tournament, he demonstrated how efficient polo can be to raise funds. The sponsor stated many times they got the highest visibility because of him.
A time will come where this toxic hater of the Sussexes will have to sell the buildings and sites. This is when I believe Harry and prince Seesio will make their move by buying the place and any profits will stay with Sentebale. Maybe, it’s wishful thinking… but I so want them to sue her personally.
I notice that on the Government website Sentebale Trustees Sophie isn’t listed as Doctor but her MBE is included.
https://share.google/oDtWnyK1iBdIOzQDH
That’s because she only has an HONORARY business admin doctorate from Coventry Uni! Not an earned PhD or DPhil. It’s considered a big no-no to use ‘Dr’ professionally or publicly if one has an honorary doctorate because this gives a misleading impression. Chandauka has done so, but is more careful these days due to backlash. She talks a good game, but is not what she seems on closer inspection (also no University of Oxford degree).
Sentabale list THREE trustees on their page.
Sophie is listed as Dr Sophie Chandauka MBE – Chair
Dr Bhakti Hansoti
Using Rawlinson
I find this whole saga unutterably heartbreaking.
At a time when Felon47 and his chainsaw-wielding freak show have dismantled USAID, another high-profile charity that was begun with love and a deep desire to help those who need it has been trashed by a cheap grifter and a bitter, jealous left-behind “royal” and his minion.
I can only hope that those who engineered this travesty reap their reward: an amount of suffering equal to or greater than that which they inflicted on families with sick children.
Yep, this coming at the same time that Trump and Elmo obliterated usaid? Devastating.
So Sophie is paying herself £138,267, which is $186,000. WTF? FWIW, I don’t believe she was paid at all before Harry left. Sentebale only has three trustees now, of whom two are Sophie and Rawlinson, so it must have been easy to push that 6.5% pay increase in 2025 through.
Yup!
The position as Board Chair was traditionally an unpaid volunteer position.
A big part of the original fight that Call Me Doctor Chandauka started with the Sentebale board as Chair, was her demand to change the Chair to a paid position. She first asked to be paid $3,000 per day for her time, presenting that as a bargain rate compared to her “usual” speaking fee of $2,500 per hour. 🙄
Later, after that didn’t fly, she demanded to be paid $300,000 per year for what, again, had always been an unpaid position, which she knew perfectly well because she’d been a Board member previously for several years.
Meanwhile, she looted Sentebale’s funds to pay hundreds of thousands in “consulting fees” to people who included her friends, her brother, and a company she herself ran with her brother.
The Board said uh, no, these demands and decisions are not a good use of our limited funding, and asked her to step down. She refused, then threatened to sue Sentebale to retain her unpaid position.
That’s when the Board, and then both Princes, resigned in protest of her actions and also to prevent her forcing Sentebale to pay more money fighting her lawsuit. She then complained to the Charities Commission claiming racism against her, and did a press tour publicizing those claims and bashing Prince Harry, Meghan, their friends who were Sentebale contributors, and polo as a fundraising strategy.
Now she’s paying herself a salary that’s two thirds of her original demand, looting what’s left of the charity funds, and slowly squeezing it to death, rather like a python that’s also poisonous.
It’s a truly amazing, brash, openly corrupt takedown of what once was an effective charity, doing what appears to have been excellent work for a high-needs group of people who are often forgotten in today’s media and charity circles.
There is a very cold place waiting for Chandauka, Rawlinson, and William Mountbatten-Windsor somewhere, and I hope they all find themselves there very soon.
“That’s when the Board, and then both Princes, resigned in protest of her actions and also to prevent her forcing Sentebale to pay more money fighting her lawsuit.“
— That was a fight worth having, IMO.
I know they do things differently in England, but why weren’t the charitable funds/assets frozen, in light of the complaints, accusations, and the collapse last year. That would serve to prevent looting, and the clear self-dealing S.C. seems to be doing.
@Debbie
That’s an excellent question. The Charities Commission first did an assessment, then opened a statutory inquiry into Sentebale in April 2025.
At that point, the Commission has wide legal powers to protect a charity, its funds & operations, and/or the reputation of charities generally.
Those powers extend to, among other things, freezing a charity’s funds and assets.
It’s not clear to me how strongly the trustees who resigned, or the Princes, pushed for the Commission to find Chandauka guilty of mismanagement of funds. What is clear is that the Commission smacked everybody for fighting about it in public (typical upper-class English position: causing a public scene is the worst of all possible sins) and told the current trustees to make sure to raise enough money to keep their activities going.
What they didn’t do was anything in any way substantive to protect Sentebale from the grifter who seized control of it, even though legally they could have.
Here’s the release on their final report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/regulator-concludes-case-into-sentebale
From my point of view, it’s yet another of what Harry referred to as “an establishment stitch-up.”
The reason I think Harry won’t ever return to Sentebale is that what he learned is that it’s not safe for one of his own charities to be incorporated in England. The power players there will not only not protect it, but they may actively act to destroy it or or allow it to be destroyed.
He can work with established charities, but one under his own name will be a target for William Mountbatten-Windsor and any other Left-Behind, or “royal” minion, who wants to hurt Harry & Meghan.
So to be functional going forward, Sentebale would have to be completed rebuilt from the ground up, including incorporating in a country not under UK control. And the way things are going here, I don’t know if he would start a new charity incorporated in the US. My guess is most African countries may not have laws and governance infrastructures strong enough to be fully trustworthy long-term either.
All this may be part of why Harry has said, IIRC, that he won’t be starting any more new charities.
I have a feeling that part of the restructuring of Archwell was to prevent this from happening again. I have a feeling they shored up the organizational structure so that William and his minions can’t pull a repeat performance with a hostile takeover.
Lol please explain how that’s even a little bit possible when it’s their private foundation ? The power some people think willy has seems supernatural. It’s as impossible as co-opting invictus is. They clearly explained why, it’s a change in funding, accounting and dispersal of funds. Cuts their overheads.
@anjelica, totally agreed. Chandauka was probably always a dumpster fire but the real issues started when William’s friend joined Sentebale. My first thought after reading this post was that the Sussexes wanted to protect Archewell.
I tried to look for any differences between Archewell foundation and Archewell Philanthropies and only found the foundation listed as a Delaware nonprofit corporation. The governing body of which is the board of directors that, in accordance with its bylaws, act by majority votes (with no deerence to founders) and elects the officers. Hence, as the Foundation is set up it does appear as vulnerable as Sentebale was (vulnerable to board members being compromised or to bad actors becoming board members and officers).
So Sentebale’s chief executive (who is that, because Chandauka is the head of the board of trustees only, unless she decided to put herself permanently in that role as well after the previous chief executive left?) was getting paid more than the executives at H+M’s charity in the US, even though the latter was doing far more, and much more global work and achieving a heck of a lot more than the people at Sentebale did in the past two years? Hmm.
I can’t wait to hear what the princes have up their sleeves for their next move. They have been absolutely right to paid that woman and her minions dust and to let her continue to reveal herself for what she was and continues to be.
It all started with Dr. Sophie’s attacks on Meghan and cooperation with the British rags to smear the Duchess. Writing was in the wall. She’s lucky Harry allowed her to enrich herself for 3 years instead of getting rid of her right then.
They weren’t able to or they would have.
Luv that you posted Harry’s snow polo pics with this story. Unsustainably my @ss, take that Sophie! When Sentebale sent me a fundraising email, I told them I would never send another dime until that lying thief Sophie was gone. They replied with snarky email telling me to unsubscribe. So I did and when the form asked for a reason, I wrote it’s because of that lying thief Sophie lol. Petty is me!
Me encanta, bien hecho
Let it die, and it can be resurrected as something else. I have no doubt the sussexes are still helping in some way those who need it.
I don’t think her lies are exploding in her face; I think she went in to destroy Sentebale. I’m still scratching my head, wondering why Harry and Prince Seeiso weren’t willing to go to greater lengths to oust her, rather than let her destroy Sentebale.
This episode is a cautionary tale to everyone who runs a charity. I wonder how much it has to do with the decision to restructure Archewell.