This weekend, Sky News’ royal reporter Rhiannon Mills had a new piece about the Sentebale mess. I get the feeling that the gossip is likely to slow down a bit about Sentebale these days, mostly because the British Charity Commission is now investigating what the hell happened. That being said, in the past two weeks, we’ve seen that Sentebale’s former trustees have no issues with speaking to the press and getting their side out there, especially in response to Sophie Chandauka’s wild claims about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex specifically. The more that comes out about Chandauka’s lies and misrepesentations, the trickier the British coverage becomes – the British media will never be on the Sussexes’ side in any situation, but it’s become increasingly clear to many that Chandauka is full of sh-t, if not an outright grifter. Anyway, here are some highlights from the Sky News piece:
What caused the catastrophic breakdown at Sentebale? This week I’ve been in communication with those on both sides. The acrimony and anger have been palpable, but equally clear from my conversations has been the desire on all sides to try to explain what they feel caused this catastrophic breakdown. All parties are keen “that polo match” doesn’t become the distraction – the match where it looked like Dr Chandauka and the Sussexes had fallen out. All of those involved want that to be put to one side, as they tell me there are much more fundamental questions that need to be answered.
Issue #1: How was the charity being run? I’ve been told work had been going on for some time internally to look at the governance of Sentebale. Was the current setup – how it was being run and the composition of the chair, trustees and the people in those roles – appropriate for a charity heading towards its 20th anniversary?
Issue #2: What was the future for Sentebale? Set up because of a genuine heartfelt desire to help young people in Lesotho with HIV and AIDS, was it time for them to broaden that remit? Were there obstacles to those changes happening? But also did it really need to fundamentally change?
Issue #3: And financially what was going on? Again a lot has been said by both sides about money spent on consultants’ fees, and who may have been responsible for sponsors stepping away, and fundraising levels falling.
The current Sentebale team is interested in truth & reconciliation: “Truth and reconciliation” – it felt like an interesting phrase after everything that’s been said in the past two weeks, but it came from a source close to the current Sentebale team, when I asked if they could really see any chance of rebuilding what has gone wrong. One insider, still working for the charity, did tell me they still had some hope that there may come a time when there would be some form of “truth and reconciliation process”. They added that they have always felt “if you keep your eye on the charitable objective, then I’ve often found everything falls into place”.
In one week, we went from “Prince Harry bullied Chandauka by resigning from Sentebale, he’s racist and sexist and these white people have no business operating a charity in Africa” to “actually, let’s focus on charitable work and try to reconcile!” Sounds like someone is worried about all of the receipts out there about how much money was being blown on “consultants.” Sounds like people are worried that their scheme to colonize Sentebale blew up in their faces? It also sounds like all of the lies Chandauka told about the polo match last year are being fact-checked all over the place.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Sky News screengrabs.
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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**
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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 and Duchess of Sussex after arrive at the Royal Salute Polo Challenge, to benefit Sentebale, at The USPA National Polo Center. Featuring: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Where: Wellington, Florida, United States When: 12 Apr 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
This was an autocratic chairwoman who torpedoed a 20-year old charity in one year.
This was not decades long apartheid. Some perspective Sophie – you’re no Mandela.
Sophie is not coming across as someone who is keeping her eye on the charity’s objective. She’s too busy complaining to the tabloid press about THE Serena Williams attending a polo match and Meghan daring to ask for a glass of champagne. Sounds like someone on the current board is trying to refocus the narrative but Sophie lost the damn plot from the start. Her brand is the toxic one.
How easily we allow the narrative of the enemy to form part of our own lexicon. Le sigh.
FYI: M didnt ask for no fukking glass of champagne. A high-end social like those that are executed for polo events such as the ANNUAL Sentebale fundraiser, are seamless. The drinks literally flow; there are waiters with more food than can be consumed. Guests are practically inundated with offers of food and drink.
So NO. ONE. ever has to “ask for a bloody glass of champagne.” Jesus Christ.
@Kingston, I hear you (and ITAWY) but my guess is @Jais meant what they wrote as TITC? But sometimes when you don’t clarify your comment as it being sarcastic it ends up being given numerous unintended interpretations? IDK!!
No idea if Meghan really asked for a glass of champagne or it’s just a made-up lie from Sophie. It kind of doesn’t matter to me bc I guess my feeling is that who cares if Meghan asked for a glass of champagne. If she did, there’s nothing wrong with doing that?!? I get more annoyed by the outrage of how dare Meghan ask for things. Meghan can ask for whatever she wants. But it’s acting like she did something wrong for a pretty basic thing such as requesting a drink. And that tone from the papers and Sophie is real and remains true whether she did or did not ask for a glass of champagne🤷♀️. Sophie seems to be doing a lot of lying and hopefully will get caught out more and more.
WHO exactly are the so-called current “Sentabale Team” making pronouncements about the direction it should move in! In the light of the organization being investigated by the Charities Commission, I would have thought – for now – everything would be frozen, including the funds.
Looks like they’ve made some changes to the main page of the Sentebale website. Can’t remember exactly what it was previously, but it’s been designed much more explicitly to emphasize services supporting young people – in other words, exactly the original mandate of Sentebale. Despite what’s been said the last couple of weeks, there’s nothing on that page referring to a supposed refocusing towards climate change, social justice, or even how AIDS is somehow no longer a problem in that geographic area, that was supposedly a bone of contention with the previous board.. The site also has Forget-Me-Not in big bold letters on that page; I find it offensive this woman and her people have co-opted something which must be so personal to the Sentebale founders.
They’re also pushing very hard for donations.
I’m curious why some of her other trustees have remained through the debacle they’re witnessing as Sophie has gone on her PR blitz and extremely questionable financial activities revealed. I was curious if the new women actually have valid credentials, or if their background is mostly creative, like Sophie’s. From what I see, the Sentebale site description at least for the woman who works at Johns Hopkins matches what appears for her on the JH website. So again, what’s it adding to her resume/CV to continue be connected with this extremely messy situation.
Ok ok. Sentebale had been running just fun until a plant was named a volunteer chairwoman. That is the truth!!!
Fine not fun.
If they want reconciliation the first thing should be an apology to Meghan for dragging her into this mess which is nothing to do with her. You do not wreck a children’s charity because you are angry with a founder’s wife, and you do not slate her in public, what ever happened.
Reconciliation is being talked of to distract from who the operatives were who put Sophie into Sentebale like a sleeper agent. Namely, KP, William, and Iain.
It was a given that as soon as people started fact checking her ish, and started delving deeper into Where The Money Went, and who is holding Sophie’s puppet strings, that they would cut her loose and feed her to the press wolves. This is the start of that happening.
“Anything to protect William!”, even from his own dumb ass selfish grifting ideas.
Yes. It’s cover your ass time. Sophie is about to learn a bitter lesson. They are hoping for a reconciliation to call off the Charity Commission dogs before they do too much digging. I hope Princes Harry and Seeiso don’t fall for it.
OT
I saw Serena on Instagram teaching her youngest daughter colors in French, it was cute.
Poor woman, probably don’t know she getting blame for the collapse of Sentebale.
CONdauka still can’t get over, Meghan said hi and left, how was Meghan suppose to know that CONdauka wanted to introduced to people she had met previously, not talking the entourage she brought.
Every thing CONdauka is involved with is dismantled or goes bankrupt, she resigned from a company, she was chairperson of, over 4 million in debt, £1 1/2 million in back taxes.
I’m guessing, (and I could be wrong) that the remaining people can no longer access the money until all is said and done. So now, the “current board” realize there’s no “free” money that had been anticipated would be available once everyone got pushed out. And, that if they want anything done, they need to start raising their own money. Aaannddd, its now become obvious to everyone that without Princes Seeiso and Harry (and with whatever money that was left being on lockdown), they can go nowhere. So thus the change of tone and shift in positions.
It’s a pity the board did not check her shady employment record before hiring her as volunteer chair.
All those issues are great to look at, but the issues are bigger than that, that sophie woman needs to step away and take her trustees with her, they can’t be trusted. this is Harry & Sessio’s charity to decide how things go, and they need to have a lock on who they let in their doors, No MBe’s or other like that. because it seems they can be eaily activated to take down Harry & meghan Ventures.
Isn’t the charity commission investigation a kind of truth and reconciliation forum? Cooperate with that why don’t you
Yes, about the truth. Not sure about the reconciliation bit…
Unless the CC will be investigating the financial reconciliation of donations made to the charity vs Sophie’s expenditure on consultants and how they tried to pivot from the charity’s mission. 😂
She’s going down! She’s panicking and now hoping to make nice. I hope she’s prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for mishandling of the charity’s donations.
I can tell you, in Botswana, we want her gone. So this reconciliation nonsense, she can keep it.
Jennifer, may I ask, is there a feeling in Botswana that Sentebale had too many white people in charge? Or was the feeling toward the charity — before all this mess blew up — a positive one?
All this has shown is that Sophie is an extremely thin skinned person who goes scorched earth when she feels scorned. She probably thought Harry and seeiso would never resign despite the board warning that they would. Them releasing their statement in solidarity with the board, she took that WAY too personally and hijacked the charity’s PR to defend herself. She’s been slinging mud all over the place and calling the Sussexes toxic for the charity when in reality there are no other patrons that can bring the level and kind of publicity sentebale needs to get the funds to do its work. Why on earth would any large sponsor put their trust in Sophie who walked away from another charity in the U.K. leaving it in debt? Is Sophie famous? No. She has an MBE, yet she also wants decolonisation. So what is the draw for donors now? It’s a mess. She doesn’t actually have an ethos or aim around sentebale’s future. Just wanted to put her stamp on it.
I think Sophie and her associates did not believe that Harry and Seeiso would have resigned or would want the Charity Commission to intervene. She thought that they would have backed off and allowed her to remain as Chair.
Not sure what Sophie’s endgame was. Was it to bankrupt Sentebale? Did she really think she was going to push Harry and Seeiso out of a charity they founded? She claimed it should have a more African focus, yet she hires consultants from the US and UK to advise her. And for people like Sir Trevor to go on and on about how intelligent she is, she sounds incompetent at best and a con artist at the worst. Considering who is the current US president, there is no doubt that dishonesty and stupidity can take you a long way.
Her presentation in any of her public have been the opposite of professional, measured and appropriate. She escalated with each longer statement/ interview: wild easily disproved allegations , sounding outraged about a typical fundraising Polo match complete with famous patron and famous wife and her famous tennis champion friend which merited coverage by Netflix, this garnering Sentebale global coverage. She might as well have complained about Meghan and Serena being at fault for towering over her? She claimed in FT that she had the audacity to get an emergency injunction from the High Court to prevent the Board from meeting for 6 weeks to stop them voting her out. She dared and she “won “,ousting the entire board and causing both patrons to quit in solitary. Why is she so angry if they were holding her back and so much dead wood and she doesn’t need them anyway, yah boo sucks!! Actions have consequences because while CC may take 2 years to evaluate and pronounce judgement : SM sleuthing and journalists are unearthing receipts now. Sophie is getting scrutinized over her allegations and her own education and career.
Well she had the hubris to demand a salary of $300K for her so-called work with Sentebale, in a position that was strictly voluntary. I think she saw this as a “goose that laid a golden egg” moment where she could leapfrog into the CEO position and make bank. When it backfired she came out swinging and started on the smearing rampage that seems to have failed spectacularly. She is turning herself into poison. No charity will take her on after the dust settles.
My hope is that Harry sees how far willie will go to destroy his…and by proxy….his mother’s legacy, and hopefully he is working overtime to secure invictus. He’s going to be hiring a new CEO for invictus soon. Let this whole situation be a teachable moment. Secure invictus….. Or the firm will come after it as well.
I wonder if it’s still possible to change the 2027 Invictus Games venue from Birmingham, UK to somewhere else outside UK. I am not confident that anywhere in the UK is safe for Prince Harry & his family to visit for any length of time.
Truth and reconciliation is term and governing body created after aparthied [1994 ish] to get apologies and ammends from colonizers for them sanctioning murder of the indigenous [Canada since 2007 ish] people. lands, heritage, culture. Plus a whole lot more of dastardly dastardly etc the trauma and impact can not be undervalued for hundreds of years and ongoing.
https://youtu.be/q3sHZCTly1c [ brown university’s Newell Stultz exlanning what truth and reconciliation committee is in under 2 minutes]
https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525. [ canadian govt site description]
To the new and traitorous sentebale board do not demean what truth and reconciliation is to use it to describe what happened here. YOu tried to take sentebale, the founders and board put up a fight by walking out. Spohie exposed you to media , the committee review was always coming. The original board would have done it which is why Sophie came out swinging first. You joined a board for a few weeks to support a Trojan horse named Sophie, undermine the goals of sentebale , take sentebale away from the founders and take money away from the children sentebale supports.
Just up and go traitor board And Hope the founders let you leave quietly. Your only hope is to get a job elsewhere before the committee releases the report. Stop trying to negotiate keeping your board seats from your weak state. Take the L and go.
Sophie just blew up her career. Whoever she was working with is going to threw her dumb ass under the train. I hope the publish the full report. If William is involve (I believe he is) Charles will do everything to stop them from putting that info out there. Or William might throw his wife under the bus again. I keep saying William is the CANCER. He’s aging rapidly and looks a hot mess. I’m sure Kate is miserable.
Yeah I know we’ve said people close to William might donate but the connecting dots are too obvious now. They’re not going to donate. She has indeed blown up her career as she melts down over a polo match.
@Jais
She ruined the whole charity event by running to anyone who would listen and talking about herself and not standing where she wanted to be. They should get rid of her immediately, especially since she went straight to that Wootton scum with that whining.
Absolutely scandalous!!!
I mean they tried? And then she threatened to sue. And is now running around to the tabloids crying about, as you say, where she’s freaking standing. Meanwhile what happens to the kids benefitting from the charity. Sophie has said barely a word about that.
@JAIS
She only said about the children that Sentebale has to change her profile because HIV/AIDS is no longer a fatal disease so Sentebale will no longer be involved in this.
In Lesotho and Botswana, one in five people is infected and the curve is rising. What the hell is this woman talking about. It is enough to skip one dose of the medication and she gets infected again. There can be no interruptions in their supply, and not only is she wasting the Foundation’s money, but Trump withdrew US funding for the medication overnight.
Sentebale also takes care of children whose parents died of AIDS, but she seems to only care about Harry, on whom she is now taking revenge, and the arrangement she entered into with the palace.
Methinks reconciliation = I don’t want to face criminal prosecution or a defamation lawsuit. Sophie and the current trustees must be feeling the heat.
Apart from Iain Rawlingson ( Willie’s ally) who’s been publicly named as a new trustee, who else is on the board? And how were they chosen? Does the problematic chair have a legal right to choose new trustees?
No way . After epic gaslighting , unfairly and cruelly thrashing Prince Harry, Meghan and the Board of trustees on primetime TV and in mainstream newspapers there is no way forward for sophie, the chair. Her career serving on various Boards and organisations in Uk and USA is zero. Her ability to raise funds and find sponsors is zero too.
I guess seeing Sophie flailing around and grasping at straws just makes me feel that nothing is going to save her. The truth will out, but what a piece of trash she is for throwing shade at Meghan just to save herself.
I think she has a different problem with Meghan. She would like to be Meghan by Harry’s side. Hence this pain in the as….s.
The commenters here wrote that when she attacked the board and Sentebale in interviews, she spoke only in superlatives about Harry. That he is wonderful and very nice. She probably imagined that she would remove/push everyone away, including Meghan, and that they would run Sentebale together and she would be able to cuddle up to Harry even more in photos.
That is why Harry’s resignation was such a shock to her, which she called harassment. 🙂
Harry and Meghan should watch out for her, who knows how big this obsession is, and we know where it can lead.