The head of a charity co-founded by Prince Harry has accused the British royal of “bullying and harassment at scale”, after he quit the organisation earlier this week.
Dr Sophie Chandauka said Harry’s “unleashing of the Sussex machine” has broken the relationship between the prince and the 540 people who work for the Sentebale charity, the youth-focused organisation founded by the Duke of Sussex and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006.
“The only reason I’m here… is because at some point on Tuesday, Prince Harry authorised the release of a damaging piece of news to the outside world without informing me or my country directors, or my executive director,” Dr Chandauka said on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
“And can you imagine what that attack has done for me, on me and the 540 individuals in the Sentebale organisations and their family?
“That is an example of harassment and bullying at scale.”
Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho resigned as patrons of Sentebale earlier this week in support of the charity’s trustees, who left the organisation following a dispute with Dr Chandauka.
In a statement, they said they left because the relationship between the trustees and Dr Chandauka had “broke down beyond repair”.
But Dr Chandauka blamed the “unleashing of the Sussex machine” for damaging the relationship and claimed the Duke wanted to oust her.
She also accused the duke of being “involved” in a “cover-up” of an investigation about bullying, harassment and misogyny at the organisation.
“Really, what Prince Harry wanted to do was to eject me from the organisation and this went on for months. It went on for months through bullying, harassment. I have documentation,” she told Sky News.
“There were board meetings where members of the executive team and external strategic advisors were sending me messages saying, ‘Should I interrupt? Should I stop this? Oh my gosh, this is so bad’.”
Dr Chandauka claimed the Duke briefed the press about stepping back from the charity before letting her or the charity’s executive director know first.
A source familiar with events countered Chandauka’s claims, saying both Harry and Seeiso had sent a resignation letter to the chair as well as trustees on 10 March.
Expanding on the “Sussex machine” allegation, Dr Chandauka claimed the Duke asked her to release a statement in support of Meghan after the Duchess attended the charity’s fundraising event in Miami, Florida.
“The duchess decided to attend, but she told us she wasn’t attending, and she brought a friend, a very famous friend, so you can imagine all of the activity that goes with these additional amazing people,” she said.
Dr Chandauka said the choreography of the event “went badly” because she had not been told about Meghan’s arrival ahead of time, and it was reported by the international press.
After this, she claimed Prince Harry urged her to release a statement in support of Meghan, but she refused because “I knew what would happen if I did so and because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes”.
She also claimed a fundraising event fell through because the Duke decided last minute to film part of it for a Netflix documentary, which the venue did not originally consent to.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Dr Chandauka also criticised Harry for having a “toxic” brand, describing it as the “number one risk” the charity faced.
Harry and Seeiso co-founded Sentebale in memory of their mothers. Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 and Seeiso’s mother, former queen of Lesotho, died in 2003.
Sentebale works in the southern African nations of Lesotho and Botswana and was started to help young people affected by Aids.
Dr Chandauka, a Zimbabwe-born and London-trained lawyer who served on the charity’s board of trustees between 2008 and 2014, was appointed chair in 2023.
Over the past year, she said, her relationship with Sentebale’s trustees and patrons has deteriorated as she moved to shift decision-making within the charity towards its leaders in southern Africa.
The organisation’s form was “no longer appropriate in 2023 in a post-Black Lives Matter world”, she said, because funders were “asking for locally-led initiatives”.
The UK-based board began to feel “a loss of power and control and influence … oh my goodness, the Africans are taking over”, Dr Chandauka added.
