As I covered the Sentebale catastrophe yesterday, I wondered what would come first in the scandal: the Windsors and royalist media showing their hand and exposing their involvement in the situation, or sources close to Prince Harry coming out to tell his side of things. Surprisingly, sources close to Harry came out about 24 hours after the initial story broke. Sidenote: earlier this month, the Sussexes’ new “chief communications officer” Meredith Maines started working with them. Maines has been working her ass off this month, and I’m so pleased to see that the Sussexes now have a really responsive AND proactive comms strategy in place. Anyway, if you want a comprehensive recap of the Sentebale mess, go here. Sentebale’s board of trustees asked their chairwoman Sophie Chandauka to resign, she refused and ran to London to sue them, and then the trustees resigned en masse, then Prince Harry and Prince Seesio resigned from Sentebale as well. Well, Sussex/Sentebale sources spoke to People Magazine about what’s been going on for the past year:
Prince Harry, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho and the board of trustees of Sentebale made the shocking decision to resign from the charity amid what has been characterized as a financial crisis and internal turmoil.
On March 26, the Duke of Sussex, 40, and Prince Seeiso, 58, announced the “devastating” decision to step down as patrons of the charity, backing the trustees who also resigned over a fallout with chairwoman Dr. Sophie Chandauka. After trustees asked Chandauka to resign, she brought a lawsuit against the charity, which supports young people in southern Africa. The Charity Commission, based in the U.K., confirmed they are investigating.
A Sentebale source familiar with the situation tells PEOPLE that Chandauka has placed significant legal and financial strain on Sentebale. According to the source, when Chandauka was appointed in July 2023, the organization was in stable financial standing — but that changed under her leadership.
When the most recent fundraising deal collapsed in December 2024, internal discussions began about her stepping down. By February, the board formally requested her resignation, but Chandauka allegedly refused. When trustees moved forward with a vote to remove her, she filed a legal challenge to block the process.
A key turning point reportedly came when tensions arose between Chandauka and a major funder of the Sentebale Polo Cup, the charity’s flagship fundraising event. As a result of this breakdown, the 2024 match did not take place. Separately, Chandauka hired external consultants — at a cost of over $600,000 — to develop new fundraising strategies and build relationships with potential donors, allegedly without securing board approval.
“The trustees felt that they couldn’t in good conscience continue to place legal and financial strain on the charity by it proceeding in court and chose to resign,” the source says.
When reached for comment, a representative for Chandauka tells PEOPLE: “First and foremost, like much of the content circulated yesterday, a lot of information being shared is untrue and defamatory in nature. When we are ready as an organization, we will share more detail regarding the events leading up to this point. Moreover, the Board acts collectively on major decisions, and it would be inappropriate to assume decisions were made by any one person. As previously said, legal action was taken because of the cover-up of issues relating to abuse of power, misconduct, mismanagement, bullying, harassment, misogyny and misogynoir amongst other concerns.”
“A key turning point reportedly came when tensions arose between Chandauka and a major funder of the Sentebale Polo Cup, the charity’s flagship fundraising event. As a result of this breakdown, the 2024 match did not take place.” Imagine being so terrible at your job, you can’t glad-hand a major sponsor of a charity polo match involving Prince Harry and Nacho Figueras. So… maybe this wasn’t a Windsor op, maybe it was just gross incompetence. Spending $600K on “external consultants” without consulting anyone within Sentebale is certainly a terrible look as well. The biggest red flag is that the entire board of trustees AND the two royal patrons have all resigned and Chandauka is still sitting in her chairwoman’s position, screaming about how she’s being bullied.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
