Celebrity
Prince Harry news: Dr Sophie Chandauka accuses him of ‘bullying’ and reveals truth behind charity drama with Meghan in 2024
Sentebale chair Dr Sophie Chandauka claims Prince Harry asked her to issue a statement in support of the Duchess of Sussex following a PR disaster at a charity polo match in 2024.
Dr Chandauka spoke with Sky News in the UK following Harry’s abrupt resignation from the charity he co-founded, describing how relations broke down with the royal.
In the interview she accused Prince Harry of ‘bullying’, explaining her version of events from the polo match.
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She claims Meghan Markle decided to attend the prestigious event with tennis star Serena Williams, despite having told them she wasn’t attending.
“We would have been really excited had we known ahead of time, but we didn’t,” the charity boss recalled. “And so the choreography went badly on stage because we had too many people on stage.
“The international press captured this, and there was a lot of talk about the duchess and the choreography on stage and whether she should have been there and her treatment of me,” Dr Chandauka continued.
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Footage of Meghan instructing Dr Chandauka to move away from Prince Harry ahead of photos being taken were shared around the world following the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Florida in 2024, the charity’s major fundraiser.
Dr Chandauka was asked twice by Meghan to move to her left side for the photo, causing her to awkwardly duck under the trophy to get into the position the duchess had instructed her to be in.
Following criticism of the duchess after the footage was shared around the world, Dr Chandauka said Harry asked her to “issue some sort of a statement in support of the duchess”.
She said she refused the request.
“Not because I didn’t care about the duchess, but because I knew what would happen if I did so, number one. And number two, because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes,” she explained.
She added that she didn’t want the charity to become part of the “Sussex PR machine”.
Dr Chandauka said had she issued the statement, she feels Meghan would have been accused of requesting it and suffered “even worse trolling” that was already happening.
She alleged Prince Harry then wanted to “eject” her from the organisation “and this went on for months”.
“It went on for months through bullying, harassment, I have documentation,” she claimed.
Dr Chandauka said when Harry’s attempts to oust her failed, he started to “brief sponsors against me”, putting the charity at risk.
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The charity boss said Harry most recently failed to inform her of the statement he would be releasing upon his resignation, potentially damaging the charity and leaving her with no choice but to defend herself.
“And can you imagine what that attack has done for me? On me? And the 540 people in the Sentebale organisation? That is an example of harassment and bullying at scale,” she added.
Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso, founders of Sentebale, released a statement on March 25 explaining they were stepping down from the charity.
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“It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation,” the princes said.
“These trustees acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down, while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind. In turn, she sued the charity to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship.”
Dr Sophie Chandauku, a highly respected Zimbabwean-born lawyer who was on the board of the Sentebale charity from 2009 to 2015 and returned as chair in July 2023, is now speaking out against these accusations.
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