Prince Harry sued by charity in Africa he co-founded in honor of Princess Diana
(CBS NEWS) — A charity that Prince Harry co-founded in Africa to honor his late mother, Princess Diana, is suing him for defamation after he stepped down as a patron last year.
Sentebale, which Harry co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006 and helps youths with HIV in southern Africa, filed suit last month in London’s High Court, according to court records reviewed Friday.
Online filings show Harry and his friend, Mark Dyer, a trustee at the charity, are being sued for either libel or slander. No documents were available.
“The charity seeks the court’s intervention, protection, and restitution following a coordinated adverse media campaign conducted since 25 March 2025 that has caused operational disruption and reputational harm to the charity, its leadership, and its strategic partners,” Sentebale said Friday in a statement on its website.
A spokesperson for Harry and Dyer said the pair “categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims.”
In the local language of Lesotho, where the charity is based, Sentebale means “forget-me-not.”
Disagreements surfaced in 2023 over a new fundraising strategy. Harry and Seeiso stepped down as patrons of the charity in March 2025.
At the time, they said the relationship between the board and its chair, Sophie Chandauka, was beyond repair and that they were stepping down in solidarity with five trustees who resigned over an internal dispute that had broken into public view.
“What’s transpired is unthinkable. We are in shock that we have to do this, but we have a continued responsibility to Sentebale’s beneficiaries, so we will be sharing all of our concerns with the Charity Commission as to how this came about,” Harry and Seeiso said in a joint statement at the time.
Chandauka later accused Harry of orchestrating a campaign of bullying and harassment to try to force her out.
She told Sky News in March that Harry’s resignation had blindsided her and was “an example of harassment and bullying at scale.” She said he also had interfered with a whistleblower complaint she filed against the charity.
“So it’s a cover-up, and the prince is involved,” she said.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales investigated and criticized both sides for allowing the issue to be played out in public and damaging the organization’s reputation, but found no evidence of widespread bullying or misogyny at Sentebale.
“Sentebale’s problems played out in the public eye, enabling a damaging dispute to harm the charity’s reputation, risk overshadowing its many achievements, and jeopardizing the charity’s ability to deliver for the very beneficiaries it was created to serve,” commission CEO David Holdsworth said in a statement in August 2025.
Harry’s spokesman had criticized the commission’s report while Chandauka welcomed it.
Messages seeking comment sent Friday to the office of the Duke of Sussex were not immediately returned.
