Let’s be perfectly clear: Sophie Chandauka committed a hostile takeover of Sentebale, then publicly smeared the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The Charity Commission found absolutely no evidence of anyone associated with Sentebale bullying Chandauka or being sexist or racist to her. The whole point of Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso’s March resignations from Sentebale (not to mention the resignations from a majority of Sentebale’s board of trustees) was to force Chandauka to step down as chairwoman after her gross mismanagement. Instead, she’s now behaving as if Sentebale is HER charity, and that she has the full use of the names of Seeiso and Harry’s mothers.
After the Charity Commission’s report came out this week, Chandauka’s public statement included this: “Despite the recent turbulence, we will always be inspired by the vision of our Founders, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso, who established Sentebale in memory of their precious mothers, Princess Diana and Queen ‘Mamohato’.” A source close to the former trustees told People Magazine that they found the invocation of Diana and Queen Mamohato to be “appalling.” On Wednesday, a source close to Prince Harry told the Telegraph:
“For Sophie Chandauka to have invoked Princess Diana’s memory in her own defence was in the poorest possible taste. She’s got what she wants, which is control of the charity, but unfortunately the people who suffer most out of all of this…are the children of Lesotho and Botswana.”
Prince Harry is said to be “emotionally devastated” and “drained” after losing the battle for control of the charity which he has championed for the last 19 years.
“The most devastating thing for Prince Harry in all of this is that his life’s work and all the money he was able to pump into Lesotho and Botswana through his work has gone down in flames,” the source added. “She’s allowing it to go down in flames because of her own pride and hubris…[Harry] has for the last 19 years established this charity from nothing.”
I keep thinking about the money too, and how much money Harry has poured into Sentebale, all to continue the vital work of providing education and health services to children with HIV. He put more than $1 million of his memoir profits into Sentebale. He’s traveled around the world playing charity polo matches in support of the charity. And Chandauka has looted those funds and destroyed Seeiso and Harry’s legacies in Lesotho. Additionally, a “source close to Harry” also spoke to Tom Sykes’ Royalist Substack:
A source close to Harry…told me the prince was “emotionally devastated” by what has happened. He is also incredibly angry. Harry believes the charity, which has helped hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest and most desperate children cope with HIV, either directly or in their family, over the past 19 years, has effectively been “tanked” by Chandauka.
Adding a new level of anguish, he is “absolutely disgusted” that Chandauka has invoked the memory and legacy of his mother to attack him in her own statement issued today. Harry is also, I think it’s fair to say, ruing the day in July 2023, that Chandauka was appointed chair of the board, giving her a powerbase from which to launch her “hostile takeover” of the charity, as he is characterizing it to his allies.
The source said: “Sophie Chandauka is intelligent, articulate and charismatic and she used that charisma to manipulate people around her, to effect this power grab and basically steal away Prince Harry and Prince Seesio’s life’s work. Harry is emotionally distraught at what has happened. He has given blood, sweat and tears for the charity. He has given a significant amount of his own wealth to it, and it is especially disgusting that Sophie Chandauka has today mentioned, and tried to invoke the memories of their mothers, Princess Diana and Queen ‘Mamohato, using their names and their memories against their own sons. It is appalling.”
The source added: “In the 19 years since Harry and Prince Seeiso set the charity up, it has helped over 100,000 children. In the short term that Sophie Chandauka has been in post, she has dragged the charity into the mud. She has tanked the charity. Now, the Charity Commission have found her all her claims about racism and misogyny to be baseless. They are false.”
The Harry source said: “She did all this to divert attention away from her financial irregularities. She continues to double down on it because she knows she is in the wrong.”
Chandauka’s audacity knows no bounds. I wish Harry was even half as vindictive as his family, honestly. I wish he would go to the mattresses and really set out to destroy Chandauka. Sue her into oblivion, make her persona non grata with all donors and potential donors, and amplify the f–k out of her associations with Prince William’s long-time allies. Make sure that absolutely everyone knows what she’s done. Ensure that everyone knows that she’s a liar and fantasist.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Sky News.
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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**
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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 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**
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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 sure both the princes are looking into what they can actually do to stop this bitch. I suspect that they will come at her in a way that she doesn’t suspect. I wish them both well with their future endeavors to help the children and people they were helping before this takeover.
i do think this is close to the end of Sentebale which I think really must be “emotionally devastating” for Harry. This woman has gotten some notoriety over the last year but there are many many charities out there that people can support. Sentebale isn’t a huge charity but it got a lot of press because of Harry – and now that’s gone. does she think people are going to turn up for Sentebale polo matches that don’t have Harry and other famous people like Nacho on the pitch? Does she think another donor is going to give 1 million from a book advance to the charity?
The donations are going to significantly dry up – maybe not going away completely – but she thought she was taking over a charity that does pretty well donation-wise and has royal connections (giving her royal connections) and now she’s left with Iain Rawlinson or whatever his name is.
She’ll soon find out that exchanging Harry for William is not a fair trade charity-wise.
I figure Harry and Nacho made the polo matches happen and without them there will be zero polo matches to raise funds. A lot of people see her for what she is and that’s a fraud (and a shitty human) No one will give her a dime.
This whole situation is awful and cruel.
With the issue of financial irregularities made public and not addressed at all by the commission, who would dare give money to this organization?
The only possible way for Sentebale to continue would be to remove Chandauka. But they did not and so this charity has no credibility.
Harry and Seeiso will need to start something else. They will get the funds and support.
@Nic919 … What I don’t understand is why the two Princes just can’t close down Sentebale as the Founders and then create something else with the same premise. Even Sophie acknowledges that they are the Founders.
Does anyone here know if a Charity Founder is allowed to shut down a charity they created or established?
My fear is that William will now step in to ‘rescue’ Sentebale after secretly–in my opinion–bankrolling Sophie’s attempt to discredit Harry and tarnish his name for any future charitable projects. Can’t have him establishing legacies that outshine Work Shy Willie.
When Harry and Seeiso do start something else, and they will, it will be based out of the US or Lesotho. The UK doesn’t get to be involved anymore. And we all know whose loss that is.
This is all so infuriating. Sophie is so desperate and greedy for how she’s conducted herself. All she wants is the notoriety that comes with Sentebale. Now all she is just notorious.
I honestly don’t think he’ll have to do that, she’s doing it herself. If she was able to bring in money the way he did when he was associated the charity ,donations wouldn’t have fallen off a cliff since earlier this year, and she wouldn’t be name dropping either Prince nor their mother.
Remember, she is the one who said that Prince Harry was detrimental to the success of Sentabale. So why would she still want to remind people that he started it? That it was his 20 year organization? I’m not sure if ego made her think that it wasn’t that hard to get the money, and once the founders and the board was gone it would say the same? Or, if she thought that the people that were donating would just shrug and continue to give money after all of this.
She may have thought she was going to get an influx of cash from the royal foundation, or Sussex haters, but as I keep saying ,they hate them they don’t love you.
She will find a way to make it seem like the failure of the organization in a year or so has absolutely nothing to do with her and it’s all their fault. And the fact that she can’t get a job as a director of a non-profit anywhere is because of them, and not because you would have to be pretty stupid as a NPO board at this point to bring her onboard to your charity.
I hope you are right and that she doesn’t have shady sources lined up looking to launder money.
That’s what I’m worried about too. In the past, Harry & Sentebale has rejected donation from shady people. (Harry’s father did the opposite, he & his Foundation gladly accepted them.) Now, with pool’s major sponsor pulled out, Squardies refused to donate, where would she get the money & benefit herself?
Yes, it’s hard for me to figure her end game. From what I saw on the Charity Commission site, Sentebale only has a couple million in assets and the Royal Foundation is too small to give more than a small grant – plus, it seems to be all earmarked for other interests. For a climber like she is, it doesn’t make sense to upend a charity and attack Harry and Meghan in such a public way. She could have stepped away quietly with whatever reputation she has intact, but she chose to make a big mess, and for what?
I can weave a conspiracy theory that William wants to destroy Sentebale, but what’s in it for her to be seen bringing down such a high profile project? Is she just a useful idiot?
“Useful idiot” would be an apt description in this case. I don’t usually subscribe to conspiracy theories but I think this Sentebale mess has Bulliam’s fingers all over it. He is determined to take away everything Harry has.
Devastating for both Princes .
Hope this awful woman gets her comeuppance.
William as well. He helped destroy a charity founded on the memory of two deceased women, one of whom is his mother. Karma will have her way with him too.
As if publicly calling his mother crazy and paranoid, and attempting to silence her even in death wasn’t disrespectful enough. William is ALL Windsor.
Sadly, I’ve given up pinning any hope on karma. The worst people keep prevailing.
Could Prince{s} S&H just reopen a charity and call it Sentebale – The Real One…?
They could get some aggressive brand management. They could still raise money with polo matches and/or galas, etc
One report I’ve seen says that Prince Seeoiso wants to start a new charity ,Sentabale-in-Lesotho, to continue the original focus.
As someone on X mentioned, Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso need to take time, regroup and rename the charity ‘Forget Me Not,”. Same meaning as Sentebale. This is a vile, ego driven monster who I believe had misplaced affection for Harry because of his natural kindness she read more into his charm than was intended. I also believe Meghan sensed this and this is why the maneuvering took place on the podium. Devoting 19 years of your life all while promoting and donating from your personal wealth showed how committed Prince Harry is to those children. I wish both Princes well as they navigate this new reality while they strategize.
In agreement with you. Meghan picked up on it and thankfully she was there at the polo match. I think she was trying to get inappropriately close to Harry. Don’t forget she asked to see Harry alone to talk about the issues at Sentebale.
She was also ridiculously upset that Meghan showed up at the polo match to see HER husband. Like someone who was thwarted. A very dangerous woman based on her actions. Do not underestimate such persons.
The weird thing is that the match was being filmed for the Netflix series, so, of course, Meghan was going to be there.
I think it was opportunism just in that it was a public moment that Sophie could later draw on to talk negatively about Meghan. It didn’t have to make sense as long as she could say xyz Meghan was terrible. The BM didn’t need it to make sense if it had to do with Meghan.
@Maxine Branch, I agree. If you look closely at the photo from the event without Meghan, Sophie’s hand (braceleted wrist) is very clearly on Harry’s butt.
What is the point of even having a “Charity Commission” if they are incapable or unwilling to expose the truth of greedy, incompetent scammers enriching themselves off of charities?
The point of the charity commission is to use the connections within the commission to aide certain sectors in the UK. There are too many so-called regulators in the UK who are linked to the royal family and the government as protection for them to avoid prosecution or punishment for their wrongdoings. This is the same commission that is linked to Camilla’s nephew and that saw nothing wrong or illegal with Charles excepting bags of cash for honors. The protection rings in the UK are similar to what Trump has created with this administration. Evil protecting evil to hide all of their misdeeds and illegalities.
Harry should legally try to stop her from talking about diana.even invoking her name.
Since what she said was the truth about how the charity was founded, I don’t think that’s possible.
It was in bad taste, that was all.
So is accusing people of things they haven’t done. Doesn’t stop the woman.
Is anyone out there knowledgeable about the Charity Commission? I know Chandauka is the one who filed the complaint. Does that mean only her complaint was ruled on? Did Harry or the other board members who resigned file a counter complaint alleging financial mismanagement?
The former trustees gave a statement that they notified this ludicrous commission about her back in 2024 and they did nothing and gave no feedback at all. Yet they complain and chastise them for making things public when it was clear she couldn’t be reasoned with. So they resigned and notified the public why they all did and why the patrons did. Sounds reasonable to me!
I read somewhere else that Camilla’s nephew is the Charity Commission’s CEO. I have no idea if that’s true. But if it is true, I hope he recused himself, but I truly doubt he did.
I agree with you, Kaiser. But Harry is his mother’s son, and Diana had too much decency, too, to do that (other than a few well-deserved comments about the Rottweiler, and those were more factual than mud-slinging).
But yeah…totally sickens me that that lying *&^%$ was able to literally steal from the charity’s funds, and literally steal the actual charity away from its founders.
I think this is the reason behind the push to change Sentabale’s mission from HIV to Climate Change. William would be able to direct some of his contacts to donate. I mean one million from Bloomberg is just lint in the bottom of his pocket. Not only, could he pay the annual budget but give “Not a Doctor” Chanduka the 300K salary she so desperately wants.
so. I have just read on the other thread here today about this story that it seems Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot is a director of the Charity Commission. Oh, my. That is awfully ugly. Camilla has always been very sanctimonious about playing down her influence, her scheming, her intrigues with the media, etc….. until Meghan came on the scene, at which point, it all just got very ugly. These people think it’s not obvious when they’re playing games, because they think they’re keeping up a game face, keeping up appearances. But Camilla has never really done appearances — she’s sloppy, rude, gauche, entitled, and slattern. Like her son and his louche circle, the ones who originally leaked the Hanbury story. I mean…. This woman is Iago. Really. Charles is a weak man, but she is the villain of this particular piece of British history. She’s a character straight out of Hilary Mantel.
Camilla’s nephew Ben Elliot is former president of the conservative party and so being appointed to something like this fits in with the whole system over there of rewarding party hacks.
I think the more direct actions were taken by william and his tusk trustee Iain Rawlinson. Iain clearly advised sophie and was literally right there during the interviews to both attack Harry and drag meghan in to this too.
I do not believe that camilla was involved with this one but the setup over there is so full of connections that once the complaint was made her nephew should have confirmed that there was a conflict of interest.
I have been searching (now and then) for a word that describes Camilla and slattern is perfect, it describers her to a T, right down to her ugly house dresses.
Lady D, thank you for calling out Camilla’s ugly zip up house dresses, that is, Camilla the slattern. Parkrunmum, thank you for your very literate and true observation. Had to look up the word louche. Love these two comments.
The money she looted on “consultants” should have gone to the community in LeSotho.
LeSotho is within South Africa, it was never colonized because it had no natural resources to steal- so the british/dutch/whatever colonizers didn’t bother with it.
That community could have used all those millions that she stole.
Harry can start a new charity. Make sure anyone who has ever given to Sentebale know that no actual money is going to help people.
I am sorry as this is one of his longest standing projects and something that was incredibly meaningful to him.
But the real tragedy is this woman is trumpian- she would steal from the needy. Like how trump created a child cancer “charity” that he stole from in NY, after which he was not legally allowed to ever head a charity in new york.
Because he and his minions stole money that people gave to help children with cancer.
I’m sure this is upsetting to both Princes. But I think this opportunity to make a clean break from Sentebale and to start something new. As I said yesterday I don’t think Sentebale is going to be around for much longer.
I haven’t had time to check this myself, but I heard that Camilla’s nephew is a business partner of one of the members of the commission who himself is a founder of a non-profit or a charity. So my question is shouldn’t members of the Commission investigating charities be not involved with charities themselves. I just had a feeling when it was announced that the charity commission that found nothing irregular about Charles accepting bags of money could be trusted to do what is fair and just. The royal family has a finger in everything.
Sophie is the definition of evil that walks among us . My heart is sad for Harry and Seso and like Harry says the children who are the true victims of this satanic being and all those who helped her to destroy this charity and the good work it was doing. May she feel the wrath of god. And in my opinion, it’s time for Harry to move invictus out of the uk
Harry is loved by the British military, they adore him. To yank Invictus would I think, hurt a lot of the people Invictus is aimed at. I guess it depends on how many of the RF’s dirty tricks get exposed to the public concerning the games.
Evoking their mothers’ names was disgusting. Even if it was a more mild disagreement, it’s still awful. Rubbing salt in the wound.
This! She needs to keep their mother’s names out of her mouth! Wonder how many garbage bags of cash she is getting from the BRF for all this.
Anytime she invokes the name of Princess Diana-people should ask is she your mother are you related to her-if not the only people who have a right to use her name and where others need to get permission are Harry and William. This makes her crass, crude, and disrespectful by using her name without the permission of her sons-If her sons do not want you to use their mother’s name you should be respectful enough not to use it,-some people are just stuck on stupid.
This simply bears the hallmarks of cruelty. No one benefits; the only result is to rob Harry of his work, destroy it, and cause him suffering because those he wanted to help from the bottom of his heart are now suffering again, which is surely what torments him most. So the question is, who enjoys being so cruel? Follow this lead!